Ray Simmons Corporation

FORM 1040 AT GETTYSBURG

TWO SCORE and four years ago our fathers brought forth on this Nation a new tax, conceived in desperation and dedicated to the proposition that all men are fair game.

WE ARE now engaged in a great mass of calculations, testing whether this taxpayer, or any taxpayer, so confused and so impoverished can long endure. We are met on Form 1040. We have come to dedicate a large portion of our income to a final resting place with those men who spend their lives that they may spend our money.

IT IS altogether in anguish and torture that we should do this. But in the legal sense we cannot cheat, we cannot underestimate this tax. The collectors, clever and sly, who have computed here have gone far beyond our poor power to add and subtract.

OUR CREDITORS will little note nor long remember what we pay here, but the Bureau of Internal Revenue can never forget what we report here. It is rather for us to be dedicated to the great task before us ? that from these vanished dollars we take increased devotion to resolve that next year will not find us in a higher tax bracket.

We have been fighting the good fight to keep our clients' taxes as low as legally possible since before the Internal Revenue Service was even the Internal Revenue Service. The agency that is part of the Department of Treasury, which is responsible for the administration of tax law and the collection of taxes, started out in 1918 as the Bureau of Internal Revenue. In 1953 the name was changed to the Internal Revenue Service. The verse above was written by the patriarch of Simmons Tax Services about the time the first Simmons tax office was opened. After almost 60 years the message is still the same.

Preparing your own income tax return can be a task that leaves you with more questions than answers. According to a study released by the US Government's General Accounting Office last year, most taxpayers (77% of 71 million taxpayers) believe they benefited from using a professional tax preparer.

Whether we like it or not, today's tax laws are so complicated that filing a relatively simple return can be confusing. It is just too easy to overlook deductions and credits to which you are entitled. Even if you use a computer software program there's no substitute for the assistance of an experienced tax professional.