jeff@heurikon.UUCP (02/19/84)
This is from an IRS explanation of IRS Section 3302. (Date
unknown.) Take a deap breath; this is all one sentence.
"The provisions of the preceding sentence shall
not be applicable with respect to the taxable year
beginning January 1, 1975, or any suceeding taxable
year which begins before January 1, 1978; and, for
purposes of such sentence, January 1, 1978, shall
be deemed to be the first January 1 occurring after
January 1, 1974, and consecutive taxable years in the
period commencing January 1, 1978, shall be determined
as if the taxable year which begins on January 1, 1978,
were the taxable year immediately succeeding the taxable
year which began on January 1, 1974."
Sigh...
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/"""\ Jeffrey Mattox, Heurikon Corp, Madison, WI
|O.O| {harpo, hao, philabs}!seismo!uwvax!heurikon!jeff (news & mail)
\_=_/ ihnp4!heurikon!jeff (mail - fast)dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (02/20/84)
That's not at all unusual. The Canadian Income Tax Act contains
many examples like that; in fact, if you pick up the Act and open it
up at random, the sentence you find will likely be (a) long, (b)
incomprehensible at first glance, and (c) grammatically correct.
The Act and Regulations are not designed to be read by lay persons;
they are designed to be read by experts, who deal with the legislation
all the time. Yes, it would be nice if you could understand it all,
but the fact is the tax system is extraordinarily complex, and it's
not at all easy for an untrained person to understand the primary
source (legislation).
If anyone's interested, I wrote a paper recently entitled
"Comparative Analysis of U.S. and Canadian Approaches to
Income Tax Legislative Design and Implications for Computerization."
In fact, that very language of which you complain makes the system
ultimately better structured and more easily handled by computer.
Dave Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
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