THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 5, 1996 TAG: 9602030218
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
[Side Bar to main story]
The terrain hasn't changed dramatically, but the number of guidebooks continues to swell.
So anyone trying to navigate their way through a federal tax return this spring will find plenty of advice on bookstore shelves.
You say you'd like some humor to spice up mind-numbing details about rental income and K-1 forms? The Complete Idiot's Guide to Doing Your Income Taxes provides cartoons and an offbeat writing style.
You say you enjoy sparring with the Internal Revenue Service over deductions?
What the IRS Doesn't Want you to Know offers advice on documenting your deductions and negotiating with IRS auditors.
In recent years, tax-guide publishers have made their books easier to use by better organizing the advice, warnings and sample tax returns.
Most of these books also include glossaries of tax terms and blank tax forms. The Ernst & Young Tax Guide, for example, has 41 forms and schedules that can be removed from the book and used.
The Consumer Reports Books Guide to Income Tax is especially useful because of its worksheet for organizing tax documents and a detailed checklist of deductions.
Filling out a tax return can become an opportunity for financial planning. Several popular guides touch on tax planning, but Kiplinger's Cut Your Taxes and The Price Waterhouse Personal Tax Adviser have skipped the line-by-line instructions and emphasized a year-round approach to minimizing one's taxes.
Even if you expect to have someone else prepare your tax return, a guide can explain the tax data that you will have to gather for a preparer.
For many individuals, the best place to start is with a free IRS guide: Your Federal Income Tax, also known as Publication 17. Most tax guides available in bookstores have expanded on the information provided in the IRS Publication 17.
KEYWORDS: INCOME TAX RETURN by CNB