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456 pages, $28.95
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2185 Briarcliff Rd.
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(404) 636-2473

Chosen Treasures
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Sandy Springs, GA 30328
(404) 843-1933

Chapters

Preface

One
accountants portrayed in popular culture

Two
death from overwork

Three
accountants' glamorous world

Four
history of accounting
"Sarbanes-Oxley Blues," words and music written by Headwaters Co-Founder & Chairman Dave Maney

Five
evil taxers

Six
U.S. tax history

Seven
IRS history

Eight
Al Capone, FDR, LBJ, MLK, Watergate

Nine
Sex of a Hippopotamus

Ten
Tax Court

Eleven
tax return publicity

Twelve
famous wealthy people

Notes

Index


SEXING A HIPPO IS NOT AN EASY FEAT
“Hippopotamus at the Zoological Gardens
Regent’s Park, 1852”
                      –by the Count of Montizón


From Mr Jay Starkman.

Sir, I was delighted to see an 1852 photograph of Obaysch, Europe’s first hippopotamus, in your article on 19th century photography (“The quirks steal the show”, November 4). The London Zoo couldn’t determine his gender when they acquired him in 1850. His offspring, born on November 5 1872, was named “Guy Fawkes”. It was over a year before the zoo discovered its error and renamed the calf “Miss Fawkes”.

A tax story originated with Obaysch. Middleton Beaman, the House of Representatives legislative counsel, chided the tax-writing committees, saying that the complex tax laws they were writing would make predicting the courts’ interpretation of them as difficult as determining the sex of a hippopotamus.

Jay Starkman,
Atlanta, GA, US


Published in London's Financial Times, November 6, 2009


Read more about Obaysch in the sample pages, or better yet, treat yourself and buy the book: