
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 19, 1994                   TAG: 9401250263
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

I WANTED TAX ANSWERS, BUT ALL I GOT WAS A PIE CHART

I waited a long time before the 1993 tax forms from the government of the United States of America came in the mail.

I was a little worried that maybe they weren't coming this year. I began to ask other people if they had received their tax booklets.

They looked at me funny. I don't blame them. You don't find many pathetic Americans who worry about their tax forms coming in the mail.

Normal people worry about the refunds coming in the mail.

I know that at least one of these people went home and said:

``Well, Myra, poor old Bennie was in the office today, looking confused and pathetic and asking everybody if they had gotten their tax booklets in the mail yet. Gosh. I hope somebody tells me when it's time to hang up the old cleats and hand in the old playbook.''

The forms have arrived, and I can reveal that I was not interested in getting them merely to see if there would be a refund.

My grandmother taught me not to allow money - I think she called it mammon - to be a prime mover in my life.

I was hoping, instead, that the Internal Revenue Service had returned to those pleasant bits of literature it once used to answer taxpayers' questions.

I was disappointed. There was a pie chart on page 76, but I've never been one for pie charts.

What I wanted was a return to those days when fictional families like the Browns and Greens had tax questions and the IRS composed nice little stories to illustrate them:

``Tim Green and his wife, Maria, bought a new home during the year, after selling the old one on Bide-A-Wee Lane and making a bundle. Now, Tim and Maria - who is expecting again April 15 - have questions about their recent transaction.

``The Greens put all of the money they made on the sale of their old house into the new one on Aloha Drive. They wonder if they have to report the proceeds from the sale of the old house as income. They do not.

``Tim, by the way, has a tennis elbow, and the twins are getting along nicely.''

President Clinton wants to fix everything in America, and I ask him:

Please, Mr. President, bring back the Greens. You have no idea how I miss them this time of year.

I promise not to laugh the next time you play the saxophone in public.

by CNB