A journalist, educator, and lawyer specializing in tax and government issues discusses the issues political leaders face when developing and implementing state tax policy, particularly basic state tax concepts, the political and theoretical issues involved, and the major policy issues facing state governments. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Reviewing tax returns is a key part of tax preparation. It also is an area vulnerable to major bottlenecks and backlogs. Part of the problem is that there is no information or training specifically for reviewers... until now. Inevitably, firms have more preparers than reviewers. The latter are highly skilled professionals who are more difficult to train or find. Therefore, you must consider ways to reduce review time, even at the expense of adding preparer time. This book discusses methods to reduce review time, establishes who should do the review, distinguishes between content and issues reviews, identifies specific items for the reviewers to check, and offers administrative procedures to facilitate the review process. Reviewers are not born complete and ready to go, they are developed. The problem with many firms is that they take a reasonably good tax return preparer, with above average tax knowledge and they make them a reviewer, either on purpose or by default. In many firms a partner doubles as a reviewer. In some cases this partner does not even have reasonable tax knowledge, but they do the job because it needs to get done. This is not acceptable and does not assure a good product. There is a need and hunger for information on how to more effectively review returns, and this book is the response. Read the book, reread sections, use it as a reference source. Make your review process more effective. - from the Introduction

In A Good Tax, tax expert Joan Youngman skillfully considers how to improve the operation of the property tax and supply the information that is often missing in public debate. She analyzes the legal, administrative, and political challenges to the property tax in the United States and offers recommendations for its improvement. The book is accessibly written for policy analysts and public officials who are dealing with specific property tax issues and for those concerned with property tax issues in general.