Jeff A. Schnepper - How to Pay Zero Taxes, 2017: Your Guide to Every Tax Break the IRS Allows

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This book is normally dedicated to my mogul,
Barbara, who taught me how to love, and to
my children, Brandy, Joshua, Allison, Mario,
and Jonelle, who gave me five more reasons why.

If I had the choice of doing it all over again,
I would begin by loving you again.

Also normally dedicated to the memory
of Frisco T. D. Schnepper, Tiger T. C. Schnepper, Fred T. C. Schnepper, and to Bruno,
who now give me paws,

BUT

Forget it, guys... This ones
for my Bianca Rose Conlin,
and her brothers Drew Ethan Conlin, Tyler Evan Conlin,
Spencer Henry Conlin, and Owen Bae Alexander Conlin
and their cousins Dylan Simon Schnepper and Aubrey
Anne Schnepper, who have redefined my universe!

I wish to thank Nancie Crook, Barbara Thomassian, Pat Berenson, Ronnie Smith, and Anne McVay, without whom this book could not have been written, and the U.S. Congress and the IRS, without whom this book wouldnt have been needed.

I also want to thank Sayes B. Block, for his encouragement and professional guidance; Sandi Walker, April Napolitano, and Anne Rigney, for their typing and editorial assistance; my editors at McGraw-Hill, Mary Glenn, Jane Palmieri, Patricia Amoroso, Tania Loghmani, Zach Gajewski, Patricia Wallenburg, Maki Weiring, and Cheryl Ringer; and Sri Haran, CPA, Robert Doyle, Steve Leimberg, Jeff Kelvin, Joel Petchon, John McFadden, Kenn Tacchino, Bill Rotella, George Hasenberg, Frank Kesselman, John Oxley, Stephen D. Leightman, Noeleen McLoughlin, Julian Egnaczyk, Ed Caldwell, CPA, Al Blum, Brian Hans, Harry K. Sorenson, CPA, Patrick ORourke, CPA, S. Scott Davison, Rose Thompson, Lilly Thompson, Claire Davison, Allison Schnepper, Zulma Lombardo, Morris Abraham, Richard and Janice Schank, Mark S. Fineberg, CPA, Anthony Lyras, and Ron Campbell for their professional assistance; and Simba T.C. Schnepper Conlin, Bruno T.D. Conlin, and Fred T.C. Schnepper, who give me reason to paws. Special thanks to Stephanie Davison-Thompson and Brian Lance for research and editorial assistance, to Bill Fox for his investment insights, and to contributor and pain in the ass Paul Malagoli, CLU, AEP, and ChFC, for his efforts and annoyances to make this book to be most current.

Our income tax system is overly complex. It distorts investment decisions and encourages people to put money into schemes to reduce their tax bills instead of into enterprises to create jobs and help our economy grow.

BILL BRADLEY, New Jersey senator (1984)

The words of such an act as the Income Tax... merely dance before my eyes in a meaningless procession: cross-reference, exception upon exceptioncouched in abstract terms that offer no handle to seize hold ofleave in my mind only a confused sense of some vitally important, but successfully concealed, purport, which it is my duty to extract, but which is within my power, if at all, only after the most inordinate expenditure of time. I know that these monsters are the result of fabulous industry and ingenuity, plugging up this hole and casting out the net, against all possible evasion; yet at times I cannot help recalling a saying of William James about certain passages of Hegel: that they were, no doubt, written with a passion of rationality; but that one cannot help wondering whether to the reader they have any significance save that the words are strung together with syntactical correctness....

JUDGE LEARNED HAND, Thomas Walter Swan, 57 Yale L.J. 167, 169 [1947].

Q: Whats the difference between Obamas cabinet and a penitentiary?