Thursday, August 01, 2019

Light Reading at Cafes of Bulahdelah

Astound suggests something marvelousin the etymological sense, and may even obligate us to feel envy: “I couldn’t do that. The first poem I found astounding, by Matthew Arnold, I found thanks to Mike Juster:

“Below the surface-stream, shallow and light,
Of what we say we feel – below the stream,
As light, of what we think we feel – there flows
With noiseless current strong, obscure and deep,
The central stream of what we feel indeed.”


You couldn’t make it up: Jersey is cracking down on tax avoiders




Olson (2018)“Not a team player.” “A thorn in the government’s side.” “The voice of the taxpayer.”
Outgoing National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson has been called many things, and she bears those titles—both the good and the bad—proudly.
Olson, who retires as head of the Taxpayer Advocate Service July 31 after 18 years, is no stranger to controversy. Her role—part of an independent arm of the Internal Revenue Service where taxpayers can turn for help if they have a dispute with the agency—has naturally pitted her against senior IRS leadership occasionally.
But looking back at her time in the government, Olson wouldn’t change her approach. And Congress, which created the role to act as an independent voice for the American taxpayer, might have something to say about it if her successor feels otherwise.
“The next person may have a different style,” she told Bloomberg Tax in a sitdown interview. “But they will still need to advocate zealously.”
Olson spoke about the sometimes-contentious relationship in her last public speaking engagement as the national advocate. ...
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