Learn The Enemy At Tax Time

Tax season is here, and with it a new crop of books offering tips on which arcane details of the tax laws can save a few dollars.

Martin Kaplan, a New York City accountant, has joined the ranks of tax advice authors but with a different take on the issues. To Kaplan, what matters more than details and rules is understanding the personality of the Internal Revenue Service.

He envisions the IRS as a much misunderstood creature trained to look for certain items on tax returns, while other ways of reporting the same information glide by unnoticed. And he contends that knowing the IRS personality can help soothe the creature during an audit.

“It helps to understand what the IRS people are like, how they are trained to think, how they operate, what internal pressures motivate them,” said Kaplan, who explains his theory in “What the I.R.S. Doesn’t Want You to Know” (Villard Books, $12.95); co-author is Naomi Weiss.

He describes the IRS criminal investigation unit as “macho, showy, tough, glib yet dangerous” and says you can become audit proof by arranging your affairs, while still honestly reporting them, so the IRS accepts them without question.

Several other tax experts say he has a point, but they emphasize nothing replaces an accurate return.