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     Income Tax Form Complexities, The Thin Edge (Book About Coastal
    Deterioration), Normalcy, Garbage Collecting For Gems
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Good afternoon and welcome to a GBH Journal. I'm Bill cavernous. These are the four topics examined in today's edition of GBH Journal the complications of income tax forms deterioration of America's coastline and the question of defining normalcy and gems to be found by garbage collecting. This year's deadline for the filing of income tax returns is the 17th of April just over a month away and in spite of promises from the Internal Revenue Service for simplified tax forms this year the process of itemizing to doctrine seem to be as complicated as ever. And the frustration of filling out these forms. May begin to wonder if in fact there is good reason for the complexities of the process. Reporter Peggy Bangs has
more. If you think your tax forms are complicated you should look at the nearly 2000 pages of amendments to the federal tax code in the charitable deductions category alone there are twenty nine pages of amendments added by different sessions of Congress. When charitable contributions were first listed as a deduction a person was granted the deduction if he or she contributed to a church a school or hospital. This has been modified by dozens of amendments over the years. In 1965 Congress decided the contributions to the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities were to be categorized as charitable around the same time Congress decided one could contribute not only to hospitals but to any organization engaged in research. Another amendment was added to include not only contributions to schools but to any educational organization. In 1969 another man it was out to regulate what was to be done with capital gains and capital losses. The list goes on and on. And this is just one section of
hundreds in the tax code. I asked David Shapiro an accountant from the Massachusetts Society of CPS why the court has become so complicated. One of the reasons of complication is is that congressional action is a very old joke that a camel is a horse that was designed by a committee. Well the tax law is in effect designed by three different committees with the oversight of a fourth Committee plus the two Houses of Congress. And because taxes are so overriding virtually every Congressman Larson has to put his stamp on it so that you can see the important results and there's this complication. Mr. Shapiro said that probably the major reason the code is so complex is that Congress uses tax collecting not only to raise revenue but also to implement policies. He gave some examples. One is pending now before Congress. For example in the energy bill which doesn't which is not a tax bill incidentally but there are significant tax effects in many areas
in the energy bill but one that everybody will recognize because there has been problems there is there is supposedly a tax credit for insulation in the home. Even the much maligned of the pollution allowance was a policy decision way back in the 20s. What became a political football in the 1976 campaign. The interest in taxes on homes as a person of that action. Was again a policy decision to subsidize homeownership. The thought of the casualty lasted actually because somebody has suffered a major loss. Give him some help and give him a tax deduction. Sometimes it goes from the ridiculous to the sublime. I believe it actually got through one house in Congress but died Fortunately in the conference that one congressman submitted it actually got through the house. A tax credit to purchase long underwear in the 1973 74 energy crunch so that people could keep their
house cool. There have been some suggestions for simplifying the tax code. One proposal is to return tax collecting to simple revenue raising and stop its use as a vehicle for implementing policy. This would be accomplished by having a modified graduated income tax only with no business taxes and no deductions at all. Mr. Shapiro thinks this type of plan could work but that there are some citizens in officeholders who seem to prefer the complication there. Built in the interests that would say all right that's a fine idea but don't do it to us. Almost the same kind of thing you have a giving general legislation. Yes we want to save money in government but don't cut out this program. Congressman Mills who really up until the tragic personal situation was really probably the leading congressional expert in taxes put up a bill and it was
probably about six years ago now that and he listed 54 specific items that would die automatically in 18 every three years unless Congress re-enactor them. To put these under study sort of a sunset law for tax deductions if for lack of a better term then the bill never got out of the out of the car. But now I just would like to ask you to explicate this for me. This is a sentence from the tax code. It's an amendment to the charitable contributions and give section and I'm quoting the limitation in sub paragraph shall not apply in the case of an individual if in the taxable year and in 8 of the 10 preceding taxable years the amount of the charitable contributions plus the amount of income tax determine without regard to chapter 2 relating to tax on self-employment income paid during such year in
respect of such year or preceding taxable years exceeds 90 percent of the tax payers taxable income for such year computed without regard to this section. Section 151 or any net operating loss carry back to the taxable year under Section 172. What does that mean. OK first of all you quoted a section that was taken out of the world in 1969 to form it. What that said in essence is that if you gave away more than 90 percent of your taxable income over over 8 of the preceding 10 years then the 50 percent limitation didn't apply you could use the whole deduction. I was just kidding I didn't think you would be right I thought. That's it that's code language at its best. The current legal battle of whether to allow offshore oil drilling of the Georges Bank region in
Massachusetts has heightened public awareness of the problem of the teary ration of this country's coastline. The issue is addressed more generally in the book the thin edge coast and man in crisis. The book's author and Simon claims that the coast may be permanently destroyed unless strong national action is taken to protect it. Alex Eldridge spoke with Miss Simon when she was in Boston last week. You have some very strong words in the book concerning overdevelopment along the coastline. Do you think that we need a national moratorium on building along the coast. I think there is no question that there should be a moratorium which will give us a chance to pass national legislation that will protect the coast as tightly as we possibly can. Some of the people who oppose moratoriums and controls point to the economic impact that they would have slowing growth in coastal counties of course have an economic
impact and we will suffer not only for the economy but the fact that we count on the coast for our purposes in many ways how it if we don't do it. We won't have the economic benefits and we also will live in what will truly be a dangerous condition. There seems to be a tension here and it would no doubt be felt a great deal more if Congress attempted to pass legislation between private ownership of beach property and wetland areas and public benefits from this sort of legislation. And you're coming down very strongly on the side of the public. Do you feel that this is a comfortable position for you or the majority of the country. I think the coast is a gnat gnat. Sure all the national resources that must be
regarded as something that the country itself will take care of because it does benefit every citizen when it's working. And it also threatens the lives of every citizen when it isn't working. You ask whether this is a comfortable position for me I can only say that having spent at least five years studying the material which makes up my book I could not take any other position and be morally or. Intellectually satisfied with myself because this is not an emotional problem it's factual. Turning to offshore development federal legislation is now in the works that would provide some sort of protection in the form of compensation to those affected by oil spills and federal judge Garrity has said that if that
protection is adequate he will OK the drilling. Do you feel that this sort of compensation is sufficient to justify the drilling for oil on the Georges Bank. I don't think it's possible to save gard the ocean and coast from the results of drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf no matter how many amendments Congress passes. And I don't know about Georges Bank but when you think of it how can we even imagine that we could protect. There's sure from the results of an oil well when even the oil companies say that they expect at least one major spill for the life of each field and many many more what they call nickel and dime spills. As we stand now today the ocean cannot absorb one more pint of petroleum hydrocarbons nevermind an oil spill.
And it is really going to do us any good any way even if they find oil which is dubious that oil is only going to postpone the day when we're going to have to find another source of energy. The point is that we now have to reverse our ideas about the codes we have to stop thinking how much can it take and turn around and say what how much can we do to protect it from any more damage part of human beings. If you could pick one greatest threat to the coastline among oil spills or sewage problems or overbuilding and so forth what would that be and what do you think the average citizen could go out and do about the problem. That's a tough question. I would I would say that we conceptually the threat is that we think of
the coast as there for our use that we would have we will have to as a nation turn it around and tried to think of the coast as a place where which we must guard with every possible technique. We know if we don't do that we will have a dead ocean and we have a dead ocean. We can't have a live shot. What is normal. How can you tell if your child fits the pattern generally accepted as normal in your segment of society. Andrea Neal of Providence has filed this report on the problem.
What's normal. You don't have to be there. Most people don't know whether or not they're normal because most people don't know what normal is. Even professionals within the fields of mental health may have little grounding in the normal growth and development of people because their training begins with the study of the conspicuously disturbed. The latter is much more interesting to study than what is normal. According to Dr. Joseph Zucker director of the psychiatric outpatient department at Rhode Island Hospital and professor of psychiatry at Brown University. Dr. Zucker is a member of the committee on child advocacy of the Mental Health Association of Rhode Island. He takes the stance that many problems could be avoided if parents knew what was normal and felt confident about their parenting. I think one of the problems I get if nation overload these days that parents can go get quite confused about good and bad and right and wrong and become afraid of harming their children instead of accepting the fact that basically. They have a right to feel out their own way and work out their own way of life and living.
Since it blends not only what's going on the world around them but what they bring from their own homes. When they were children growing up and were raised by their parents in a certain healthiness in that continuity I think however with the information overload that everyone is getting it becomes hard to trust oneself to do the things that come by intuition that are probably fairly healthy for most people for that reason the committee has gone to shopping malls for the past few years to talk to people about what is normal in the growth and development of children. We had a series of forums on this beginning about three years ago to help parents regain a sense of self confidence so they can pick and choose among the information overload. Life is normally full of anxiety because a person without problems or anxiety is like a dog without fleas is not natural and some anxieties are a bother some people more than other people. At the Warwick Mall attendance was good at the association seminars with 70 to
75 attending each session in a series. The first topic discussed is family formation. Although it is during the first few years of a child's life that the understanding of normal development is most crucial. The socialization process begins long before a person is born again with family formation where a young couple boy and a girl meet and they decide if they are in love when they marry and they bring to the marriage into the family. What each picked up in his own family of origin. This becomes blended into the family of procreation which is then passed on to their children and one can break into cycles as Erick Erickson did. But he had to go without the information but he took talks of the work that the growing human being has to do at certain arbitrary Lee chosen phases of life. Even before the baby is
born with that early English novel The Life and avenge of Tristram Shandy Butler and stern in which the child was not born till halfway through the book and doesn't get his first long parapet until the end of the book the first half of the book is devoted to discussing and describing the family into which is going to get boring. And so each parent when they decide to have a baby begin to anticipate what is going to be like what they want the baby to be a boy or a girl that read judgments and who's going to do what when. And much of this is already been laid down when they first married they decided who was going to put the cap on the toothpaste and was going to be squeezed in the middle or from the bottom. Who's going to handle the money. Who's going to make what decisions what decisions I will share. Or is already beginning and preparation for the arrival of a baby at each of the Rhode Island Mental Health Association seminars professionals attempt to describe the normal development of children. Ideally people should participate in such programs before their children are
born. According to Dr. Zucker your parents know what to expect they will not be so worried about predictable behaviors and they will be more confident in dealing with their children. In reality experience tells committee members that parents of adolescents get most concerned when the family already has had a break between child and parents and the mother of a 2 year old comes because her child is not toilet trained and a grandmother has exclaimed that his father was trained by the time he was 9 months old. People are reassured by the experts that adolescents do break family ties and that many two year olds are not toilet trained. That is all very normal and parents should know it intuitively. In your life the baby has to learn to sense the trust of another that's when the have had enough of it turning its optimistic and trusting about the future in itself then from one to two and a half comes the period of mobility of holding or letting go and different people can adapt to this more comfortably into the comes into play. You can't exactly say with a formula which baby in which mother have to set
practiced separation how it is certain intuitive timing suger adds that parents often fear to seek professional help when they think their child is behaving abnormally. More important many parents fear that if their child is abnormal it must be because they themselves are disturbed. One of the difficulties that one faces in seeking psychiatric help is that there is such a confusion over terms to him crazy and insane. Thrown around for many things when they should be ready to stick to the very few cases percentage wise that are labeled psychotic or insane. But whenever any of us feels he might lose control of our feelings inside as we leave ourselves in saying nothing of course as people feel they gotta solve life by themselves and becomes difficult to feel that it's strong to seek help. Not a sign of weakness. Psychiatrists warn that parents should not be overly concerned by what is normal behavior in their children. No one can define normal because normality is relative.
If one goes by 10 year studies in Nova Scotia mid-Manhattan in Nigeria 80 percent of the population has mild moderate or severe symptoms of emotional disorder. The other 80 percent only 1 percent is psychotic. The problem with the question comes up is what's wrong the 20 percent who are not showing any symptoms of stress. 80 percent of the Centaurs mean that's normal. Wouldn't you know that as well as running the 20 percent who are not reacting in cases like these says Dr. Zucker. Being abnormal may be normal and being normal may be abnormal at Brown University I'm Andrea Neill for WGBH Journal. As we all know Americans often abuse the natural beauty of this country. It has
also been said that Americans waste more than any other nationality on earth. Carborundum high school student from western Massachusetts has been ingenious and lucky in dealing with this waste material for he has an uncanny talent for uncovering gems amidst heaps of trash. As he told David Wright he seems to get a kick out of making these unusual discoveries. I found three really nice two areas and one day on the way home from school I found a 22 rifle just slightly broke. It's fine. One of the things I thought was the best find my brother made and we were just walking home from school. He looked in the trash can and top of the trash can was a box marked unused yogurt maker written in magic marker on the top and it was an unused yogurt maker we've been using it ever since. I found an amplifier in the city dump with one tube broken which
can be easily fixed and more recently than that we found just as long spread or spread seeds that lined with things like that. Do you ever talk with the people who throw these things out. Is it necessary to ask their permission to take you along with you. Well they're not really there are some people that if they see you looking they're trash. You know I think you're going to steal your orange peels and try to get rid of you. Then other people I've seen say well you just make it meet again after you left. When did you first start rummaging through the trash. Oh yes it was kind of gradual. My Ted has that kind of thing. If you could find anything that's broken you can fix he makes use of it. I suppose I was eight or nine. I just walked to school and pick up whatever I saw on the way. A lot of stuff my mother didn't like. I had to get rid of the wet things that smelled or that were dirty that you would bring
into the house. But once I found a book box of mildewy comic books and she didn't appreciate that she can smell mildewy no one else notices. It's pretty easy to distinguish good trash from trashy trash. What is the distinction. Well something you just walk by in a paper bag full of garbage is usually cardboard boxes suitcases things like that have interesting things in them things that are worth while picking usually aren't in plastic bags paper bags with the other get garbage. I imagine that because youre exploring trash you have a pretty good sense of how much waste there is from peoples houses. Yeah theres really a lot there. I guess people don't throw their garbage out to do something else with it. Food waste. But most of the trash is thrown out as paper and cans and plastic. So lots and lots of paper. So its mostly is if
80 percent of the paper was all recycled. We wouldnt really need any more trees to use trees just pretty much recycle everything. Is that in effect what you're up to sort of informally recycling the trash in your neighborhood. I guess you could say that it helps me I get a lot of free goods. I can really use. Pardew's day the 7th of March 1978. That's our producer Marsha Hurd's our engineer by Garrison and I built cabinets have a totally terrific Tuesday.
Series
WGBH Journal
Episode
Income Tax Form Complexities, The Thin Edge (Book About Coastal Deterioration), Normalcy, Garbage Collecting For Gems
Producing Organization
WGBH Educational Foundation
Contributing Organization
WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/15-51hhmvdx
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Description
Series Description
WGBH Journal is a magazine featuring segments on local news and current events.
Description
Engineer: Garrison
Broadcast Date
1978-03-07
Created Date
1978-03-07
Genres
News
Magazine
Topics
News
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:27:38
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Credits
Producing Organization: WGBH Educational Foundation
Production Unit: Radio
AAPB Contributor Holdings
WGBH
Identifier: 78-0160-03-07-001 (WGBH Item ID)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Generation: Master
Duration: 00:28:00
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Citations
Chicago: “WGBH Journal; Income Tax Form Complexities, The Thin Edge (Book About Coastal Deterioration), Normalcy, Garbage Collecting For Gems ,” 1978-03-07, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-51hhmvdx.
MLA: “WGBH Journal; Income Tax Form Complexities, The Thin Edge (Book About Coastal Deterioration), Normalcy, Garbage Collecting For Gems .” 1978-03-07. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-51hhmvdx>.
APA: WGBH Journal; Income Tax Form Complexities, The Thin Edge (Book About Coastal Deterioration), Normalcy, Garbage Collecting For Gems . Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-51hhmvdx