Conflicting Tax Advice? (IRS Graphic)

Seems that this duo avoided paying any tax on $287 million in stock option profits by using a clever tax strategy, including, among other things, claiming hundreds of thousands of personal deductions. (And you thought that real estate was a tax shelter.) Now the IRS threatens to unwind the complex transaction and stick them with a tax bill that will be difficult (or maybe impossible) to meet because Sprint's stock has fallen from over $70 to about $6. Oops.

Compare this with a Dispatch reader's recent suggestion. "I think you would strike a loud chord among your readers with some discussion about what today's technology and our workplace expectations do to us as individuals, parents, spouses etc. I feel people would love to hear real insight into how to retain or regain one's sense of self, and purpose, in this most confusing of times."

Here's one answer from David Whyte. "To have a firm persuasion in our work -- to feel that what we do is right for ourselves and good for the world at the exact same time -- is one of the great triumphs of human existence." (Sep 5, 2001, PikeNet Dispatch) ... So how do you navigate between work and family? Let me know, and I'll report more in a future Dispatch.

--Peter Pike