DATE: Monday, March 31, 1997                TAG: 9703290008

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 

SOURCE: Ann Sjoerdsma 

                                            LENGTH:   80 lines

REFORM IS SIMPLE: "NO TAXATION WITHOUT PREPARATION!"

``No Taxation Without Preparation!''

That's my revolutionary rallying cry for this year's tax season. Unless a member of Congress prepares his or her own 1040 return, he or she can't vote to change the tax laws.

That should leave about five ``public'' servants who can muck with the U.S. Tax Code.

As one of the few stubborn patriots who still do their own taxes, I can live with that. Heck, I'd thrive. An IRA deduction today could be an IRA deduction tomorrow.

Lately, I've been bemoaning that I haven't had time to work on my taxes, and the countdown to Judgment Day is on. The response I get?

``Oh, my accountant (or my brother-in-law Maury) handles that for me.'' End of story.

Even my self-employed friends, living at near-poverty level, farm out their tax returns. Talk to them about Congress' perpetual tinkering with the home-office deduction and their eyes glaze over.

What a scam. What tyranny.

Each year, H&R Block grosses $2 billion in revenues, half from its tax-preparation business. But get this: The majority of its clients earn less than $35,000 and file simple, short-form tax returns. One look at the umpteen pages of Form 1040 instructions - the ifs, ands, buts, provisos, parentheticals and cross-references - and these folks panic.

More than half of all 1040 tax returns are prepared by third parties.

Small wonder.

If you ever needed proof that Congress is a conspiracy of nitpicking sadists, or sadistic nitpickers - or filled with politicians who cater to special interests - the ever-changing tax law is it.

In the 1980s alone, 8,000 pages of statutory amendments were enacted to the Internal Revenue Code. In the 1950s, '60s and '70s, there were at most two to three major congressional tax bills; in the 1980s, there were nine. The '90s just may surpass that.

These figures come courtesy of Yale tax-law Professor Michael J. Graetz, whose new book, The Decline (and Fall?) of the Income Tax, is made to order for the frustrated, time-stressed taxpayer like myself. Graetz speaks my language: Simplification. Simplification.

Unfortunately, it's a language not understood in the current tax system, which boggles smart minds into ``I give up'' stupidity, and makes political discussions about tax reform an inside joke.

I defy every member of Congress to explain and calculate correctly the earned-income credit for at least five qualifying taxpayers.

There was a time when Americans didn't worry about income taxes, and spring was truly about renewal, not reckoning. Civil libertarians love to point out that income taxation was - and still is, to many - unconstitutional.

But that changed in 1913 with the 16th Amendment, which gave Congress the unqualified power to ``lay and collect'' income taxes. Before then, all direct taxes had to be apportioned among the states according to population.

The first U.S. income tax was adopted on Feb. 25, 1913. The highest tax rate occurred in 1944, when people earning more than $200,000 paid a whopping 94 percent (the basic 3 percent, plus a 91 percent surtax). Not surprisingly, war and taxes go hand in hand.

Today, however, the war is fought on the front lines of the 1040. It's US against U.S.

I'm no Diamond Lil, but my income is diversified. I file Schedules A through Z and spend hours pulling together the numbers, most of which have been previously recorded. I calculate for many more hours than the ever-helpful Internal Revenue Service, now a taxpayer-funded telecommunications conglomerate with its own Website and CD-ROM packages, estimates.

An accountant can save me the hassle, you say? I should spend money for the privilege of spending more money? No, thanks. If there are any errors to be made on my return, I'd like to be the one who makes them.

But, you say, I can deduct the cost of that accountant, right?

Nope, not anymore - not in full. Not since Congress passed one of its nifty percentage formulas to reduce the tax-preparation deduction.

Here's a thought: How about a write-off for the dwindling few who still do their own taxes? Twenty bucks an hour works for me.

``No Taxation Without Preparation!''

What a revolution that would cause. MEMO: Ann G. Sjoerdsma, an attorney, is an editorial columnist and book

editor for The Virginian-Pilot.

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