REGS: Puzzled by the fine print on...

REGS: Puzzled by the fine print on your tax returns? So are accountants. “We get notices from the IRS all the time, and you can’t even begin to understand them,” says Yorba Linda accountant Jerry Hitzeman. That’s why his firm has issued its second annual “Most Incomprehensible Government Regulation” award. This year’s winner: Treasury Regulation 469-1T(f)(2)(i)(C) governing “passive loss.” Among its verbiage is a 70-word sentence that contains three cross-references to other sections. “Outrageous, even by IRS standards,” says Hitzeman.