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Show The Park Record Section A Thursday, April 15, 1993 P Page A1 2 AunaD Sod Dtt (Bom.. IIY T03l CLYIIE The 1040 budget reform , PARK CITY-UTAH 3) i smbuKip ww&x &ti3&iibs l ...""""" Cto ""ITO Located at the plaza entrance of the Park City Ski Area Lunch Mon Fri 11 :00 - 2:30 pm Dinner 5:00 10:00 pm Open all day Saturday and Sunday aaHHaaaBBHaaaHHaaaaaaaaaHaaaaaaHaD a gj GUMP&AYERS Leslie Coburn, CRS a real estate inc Your Uader in Park City Real Estate a a a Leslie is highly recommended by her clients a because of her fourteen years experience, a dependability, and constant concern for their (2 best interests, whether buying or selling. As 2 a Certified Residential Specialist and jj recipient of the Lifetime Professional 2 Achievement Award, Leslie can take care of j all your real estate needs. a a a SKI IN-SKI OUT OF THIS a WONDERFUL NEW HOME IN D.V.I a Beautiful new home iust over 4.500 sa. ft. - , ; with two master suites and 3 additional ' I, 2 bdrms. Great room has lovely views j through the evergreens! Call for fact sheet. $1,095,000. a- a H EXTREMELY WELL-PRICED 2 DEER VALLEY CONDO a A short walk to slopes and shopping, a This 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath condo is tucked in the trees with terrific views. 01 Great rental property or second home. a a : a H BEST VIEWS IN PARK CITY 2 Fabulous view lot in the best subdivision rjj for the best price. Buy now and start Q building the house of your dreams on the a best lot in Park City. $184,000. a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a aaarjaaaQyaaaaBaaaaaaaaaaciaaaaaaaao - v i -JT-,, RUSTIC ELEGANCE a Lovely new home of approx. 5,300 sq. ft. 3 nestled in the foothills of Park City. Great (2 room design includes grand rock fplc. full nt bar, formal dining, billiards area and hot tub - adioining kitchen and private a a . . . i .i n masier upsrairs. vuiei jiuuy, muias !S quarters and 2 lovely guest suites. House g is offered meticulously furnished. ' ) I" : i ' I i. ws- jl " j 4 irr. : n;.if ' if April 15th, the day that will live in infamy. Like most of you, I waited until the last minute to file my income tax returns. As a self employed person, April 15th always means the cash flow is one direction out, in a big way. There are some things about the tax system that really bother me. The amount I have to pay frankly doesn't seem out of line. I'd willingly pay more if they didn't throw it away. What bothers me is the attitude. If I somehow got to be in charge of things, the income tax process would be a little different. The first change I would make is how you fill out the check. For example, when I'm sending about four months' gross income off to Washington (or down the rathole), I might feel a little better if the check was made out to "United States of America" instead of "Internal Revenue Service." Writing out "United States of America" evokes images of motherhood, apple pie and Old Glory waving proudly. It would be an act of citizenship. A check to IRS is just a payment to a despised bureaucracy. It conjures up all kinds of unfavorable images or arbitrary tax collectors who audit your payments to Social Security, which they don't have to belong to. The state has the same problem. The checks out to be payable to the State of Utah, not the State Tax Commission. I never got anything of value from either the IRS or the State Tax Commission. I feel like I get about SO cents on the dollar from the USA and State of Utah. That's not as good as lunch at the Deli, for example, where you get a pickle or chips with your sandwich, but SO cents is better than nothing. The other thing that bothers me about the tax system is that they are awfully nosy. They want to know everything about where that income came from. There are W-2 forms and 1099 forms and interest forms from your bank. Your whole financial life is spread out on the computers of the nation. If that weren't snoopy enough, they also want to know who you live with, what their relationship to you might be. They want to know who is dependent on you, and who you might be dependent on. When I got to the question about number of dependents, I had a hard time remembering how many million federal employees there are these days. They want to know if you are over 65 and blind, and whether you are married or not Then if you want to itemize your deductions, you have to really spill the beans. They want to know who you gave money to, and how much. I guess there's nothing incriminating about a contribution to the Girl Scouts or Kimball Art Center. But I wonder if there is a list of charities, a donation to which will cause red lights to flash and audits to follow. . But what really bothers me is that I filed about a ream of paper describing my financial affairs in minute detail with Uncle Sam. But he doesn't care at all about how I might want him to spend it As long as they are corresponding with almost every household in the country, why don't they send along another form and let us make suggestions on how we want that cash spent? We could all turn in our suggested federal budgets, and then the computer could average our wishes for the real thing. Congress could completely shirk its responsibility and let the budget process fall to those filing their 1040s. They would have unlimited time to travel to exotic places, and with any luck, never return. The state tax form has a series of "check-off donations that let you pay a little extra to a few of the legislature's favorite causes. The choices are pretty narrow. There is a box for "non-game wildlife." I always wonder about that, since Utah's hunters will shoot anything that moves, including road signs, leaving me to ask what critters are "non-game." But if you want to, the state lets you send some cash their way. You can also send money to the college library of your choice, the Children's Organ Transplant Fund, or the homeless shelter (which seemed like an awfully good idea in light of what I owe in taxes and where I might be living next month as a result of paying them). You could also send a little extra to your favorite nonprofit non-profit school district foundation. I didn't think too hard on that one. As far as I'm concerned, the solution to school financing in Utah is simple parents should pay more. The personal exemption actually subsidizes those who use more than their fair share of the public school resources. Maybe a special sales tax on children's shoes... But these choices aren't directing how the taxes you have to pay are spent These are extra donations. The state doesn't care how you want your taxes spent. The Federal Government offers a real choice. They will let you send $1 of your actual tax bill to the Presidential Election Campaign fund. A whole Buck! To the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. Whoopie! It's a start, though. But what I would like to see is a list of all the federal programs, with a blank next to them for each taxpayer to fill in. How much of your money do you want spent on tobacco price supports? On gigantic atom smashers? On the Pentagon, welfare, abortions, roads, federal funding of Park city's bus system (now there's an issue of nationwide concern, Park City's bus system). The National Park Service? With any luck, federal agencies would suddenly realize they had to compete for money. Their employees might be polite to the public they serve. NASA who is off my list might be sensitive to spending $30 million on fancy toilets for the space shuttle that doesn't work as often or as well as my 20-year-old Dodge pickup. The Pentagon might figure out that soldiers and sailors can wear identical underwear purchased off the shelf at Wal-Mart The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and firearms might have considered the marketing impact on their budget before spending a million a day to play Lawrence Welk music in Waco. . n It would be wonderful watching Orrin Hatch learn to say "Would you like fries with that order?" when being a Senator paid as well as being a regular citizen. Stoilk a VeBim IIY TEltl OltlL A cursed, cursive cover-up S Leslie CoSurn, CRS 649-71 53 or 649-8550 I don't remember how I came upon this fact, but I have repeated it so often over the years, it must be true. What I heard, from someone who I must have considered a reliable source, was this Albert Einstein couldn't spell to save his genius soul. Since I am an atrocious speller, I always took great comfort in this thought And over the years when my children were growing up and found something they couldn't do to be a stumbling block, I would always remind them about old Al. My friends know I am fond of the wild-haired humanist and scientist who bears a striking resemblance to a guy in Deer Valley who has skied with a phone attached to chest for years before it was trendy. I have a card, a photographic cut-out mini-man of Al that I keep on my desk. It makes me smile to see him standing over the M&M dish there in his rumpled wool coat and smashed-in hat. On the back is printed a great Al quote "The important thing is not to stop questioning." When I don't chew on the M&Ms, I chew on the words. I mention all this because there is something very leveling in finding truly great people may have shortcomings just like us. It came to mind recently when I read this rather chatty piece in the New York Times about our new president It was one of those stories that we call soft in the business. No real news hook. Clinton hadn't just signed some important legislation or met with some great world leader. No, the story was just a rambling (like this is getting to be) article that read like your basic "A Day in the Life of..." story. The writer had amassed great bits of trivia about the president's near addiction to Diet Cokes, his morning jogging schedule and how he often slips his . - shoes off behind his desk. And then, in multiple paragraphs the author described in detail this revealing fact President Clinton has terrible handwriting. So terrible, his aides have taken to comparing memos with one another to try and figure out how to decipher the shapes that represent letters. A smile crept over my face when I read that. Lousy handwriting, another , touch of the ordinary from someone otherwise quite extraordinary. My handwriting could pass for that of a career surgeon. Someone whose brain has written the words numerous times and needs only symbols on a page to represent whole sentences. The writers around here tell me that is true. They often bring stories back to me where I have scribbled in the margins thoughts I had about their work. Often I have the ability to recall my intent when I look again at the hieroglyphics on the page. They, however, are at a definite disadvantage when they try on their own to decide if ink marks are meant to be the name of a country, of a county commissioner, or the number of gallons of water needed to fill the Jordanelle Dam. This wasn't always so. Years ago when I had too much time on my hands I even studied calligraphy. I would spend hours addressing Christmas cards to friends and take great pride in the flourishes and curly cues I designed from common names. I wrote a long birthday letter once to my godfather and he commented not on the content but on the beauty of my graceful, studied handwriting. "People are in such a hurry these days," he had said, "you never see letters this lovely where such care has been given in how the letter looks." Looking back, it just may have been his way of trying to find something nice to say about an otherwise goofy note, but nonetheless it stuck with me. All the men in my life have shared a common characteristic they all print No doubt a therapist would have a heyday with that information. Still, it's true. Even my college-age son prints most of the time. I don't know exactly where this takes its place in modern education, but as I recall, cursive writing was a bench mark of the fourth grade. As a rule girls excelled in this skill and boys had a hell of time making the connection between letters. I don't know when my flowing flowery letters became flat lines with an elevated first letter and a slightly distinguishable end. I do know it evolved with this job. I devised a kind of shorthand to help me take notes while sources talked rapidly in courtrooms and public hearings. You didn't get a second chance with those quotes, so "write it quick and get it right" was the rule. I didn't mean for this to spill over to my grocery list making where my kids would call from the market and say "What was the item after the tortillas and before the onions." I would try to reconstruct the list based on the menu and sometimes I would be right and say "avocado" but sometimes, bearing no logical connection, I would blurt out "toilet paper." The pair took to asking me what I needed and writing down their own lists. But here is a secret theory and a small confession. When you write in scribbles, no one really knows if you can spell or not, because they can't read it anyway. The burden is shifted from the author to recipient And it strikes a vein with me President Clinton, Rhodes scholar and all that other stuff aside, just may have trouble with his "i before e" rule too. And maybe, rather than look up the word in his haste, he just scribbles out a semblance of the word. Perhaps a future chatty piece in the Times could examine whether Einstein had lousy handwriting too. |
