karl@dartvax.UUCP (Karl Berry.) (02/09/85)
I recently found a strange advertisement in my mailbox, from an outfit called Boardroom Books. They wanted to sell me The Book of Inside Information, for a substantial [in their eyes] discount. The advertisement starts: WHAT CREDIT CARD COMPANIES DON'T TELL YOU. PAGE 10. What hospitals don't tell you... What the IRS doesn't tell you... What auto mechanics don't tell you... and so forth. Sounds like Ralph Nader so far. Then, down in the text of the advertisement: ( a few samples ) How to fight back when health insurance claim is denied. AND WIN. Costs not listed in contract can be covered if you know the ropes. Legal ways to take tax deduction for full cost of trip mixing business and pleasure. How to deduct commuting expenses, country club membership, medical bills paid for non-dependent. And more. Quit your job, take your accrued pension tax-free, and use it to start your own business. Legal at any age. You miss your April 15 deadline and on't get around filing until mid-August. NO IRS penalty. Lots of taxpayers just like you are quietly getting away with it. Alongside such items as: How auto repair shops pa their bills. Inside strategy for getting honest total. Homeowner mistake permits fire insurance company to give you 20% less protection than you're paying for. How to check a doctor's credentials, understand medical jargon on a patients hospital chart, cut through hospital red tape, and get couteous treatment from floor staff. To me, the first set of things are `wrong'. I am not a lover of our government [who is?] but by cheating, legally or not, on taxes, insurance, or whatever, hurts the rest of the people at the same time it helps you. ( The same dilemma as that of the Commons... ) The second set of things, on the other hand, are things which some institution has imposed on us, and which, willy-nilly, we are forced to accept. The connection I see is perhaps that in both cases a <thing> is being abused; the purposes for which it was set up are being subverted. In the first case, it's a private citizen, in the second, an institution doing the abusing. Do other people see these same distinctions? Is one ``better'' than the other? Should we thus consider all contracts as being held in ``bad faith'' by both parties and try to protect ourselves? ( Warm fuzzies, though? ) What can we do? dartvax!karl karl@dartmouth.csnet
45223wc@ahuta.UUCP (w.cambre) (02/11/85)
REFERENCES: <2748@dartvax.UUCP> I see a distinction. Cutting through hospital red tape by breaking some hospital rules can only hurt yourself. Evading paying your fair share of taxes hurts everyone. Either we all have to make up for the people who don't pay enough, or the deficit just gets bigger and interest rates go up, etc. etc. etc. Notice the 'fair share' phrase above. It is hard to say what a fair share of taxes is when the tax codes have so many exemptions. Now if we had tax reforms to a simple tax code where everyone just paid x%, I believe fewer people will cheat and we will all be happier knowing everyone pays relatively the same percentage. But that's another discussion. - Bill Cambre ATTISL 53122 ahuta!45223wc 834-3788
geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning) (02/14/85)
In article <2748@dartvax.UUCP> karl@dartvax.UUCP (Karl Berry.) writes: >I recently found a strange advertisement in my mailbox, from an outfit >called Boardroom Books. They wanted to sell me The Book of Inside >Information, for a substantial [in their eyes] discount. The advertisement >starts: > >WHAT CREDIT CARD COMPANIES DON'T TELL YOU. PAGE 10. [etc] Boardroom Books is an offshoot of a newsletter called Boardroom Reports, which I have subscribed to for years. Basically, it is a series of one-paragraph tidbits mixed with a few two-page articles, all on the basic subject of business (though they divert to anything that might interest the executive, including medicine and tennis). ALL of their books, as far as I can tell, are simply collections of the tidbit parts of their newsletters. I find their information to be useful in the newsletter, though you have to take it with a bit of a grain of salt and possibly some moral filtering. I have quit buying their books because I don't read them and don't refer to them. Most of their "secrets" are not very earthshaking, and are not not necessarily as immoral as they sound when you find them out. For instance: "How to deduct...medical bills paid for non-dependent." Well, it turns out that there are IRS rules for handling such things as splitting Mom's medical bills with your siblings, none of whom pays 50% of Mom's medical bills or support (the normal IRS test). The IRS allows you to shuffle your finances so that one of the siblings gets to deduct all of the bills and split the take with the rest. Not very exciting, and not at all immoral -- it's precisely what the IRS set that particular rule for. "Legal ways to take tax deduction for full cost of trip mixing business and pleasure." The IRS allows you to deduct the full cost of transportation if more than 50% of the time was spent on business (you can never deduct the cost of the pleasure days). The loophole is that travel time is considered as business time. So, if you are going to a European conference, you can take the boat one way (which takes 5 days or so), spend 3 days at a conference, fly back in 1 day, and still be able to spend up to 8 days gallivanting around Europe without losing your expensive travel deduction. This is an example of some of the shadier morality of Boardroom. It's perfectly legal within the IRS rules, but it's obviously circumventing their intent. I have posted a few sample excerpts from "The Book of Business Knowledge" (another Boardroom Book) below so you can get a flavor of what these books are like: "MAKING A GOOD TELEPHONE IMPRESSION: Tape some telephone conversations and note how many "ahs," "ers," and "ya knows" are said. Try to eliminate these verbal pauses. Speak in sentences or complete phrases. Then be silent when pausing or thinking. IN conversations without these hesitations and sounds, callers will receive a more positive image." (p. 64) HOW TO BUY CAVIAR [about 30 lines]...BUYING A PIANO [about 15 lines] (p. 234) "SETTING PRICE OF A HOME: Don't rely too heavily on a real estate broker's advice. A broker makes more on quick sales than big ones. A fast commission of $5,000 on a $90,000 sale is much more attractive than $6,000 on a $100,000 sale that takes months to make. Check out brokers carefully before giving an exclusive. Look into prices of recent sales in the community." (p. 315) -- Geoff Kuenning Unix Consultant ...!ihnp4!trwrb!desint!geoff