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From: dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman)
Newsgroups: net.taxes
Subject: Re: More IRS diarrhea
Message-ID: <3317@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 19-Feb-84 23:40:28 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.3317
Posted: Sun Feb 19 23:40:28 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 20-Feb-84 00:31:22 EST
References: <238@heurikon.UUCP>
Organization: The Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 22

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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