Secrets of the “Most Tax-Efficient Man in America”

Tuesday, 05 April 2011 | by Pat's Picks

You’d probably prefer to forget that Tax Day is just around the corner. Hopefully, this Wall Street Journal article will inspire you, not cause anxiety. It’s about the “Most Tax-Efficient Man in America.” Doug Stives used to be a partner in an accounting firm. But then he quit, accepted a teaching job and began an experiment to get the most out of the tax code. Stives says though he earns less than 75 percent of his previous income, he takes home about 90 percent as much.

Stives says he’s moved beyond focusing on deductions, something he calls a “rookie mistake.” Instead he “tax code’s many quirks as the means through which he can live a fuller life.” For example, when he leads three day, out-of-town seminars, he deducts an 11-day trip: “To deduct the airfare, you have to spend more than half your working days on business, but travel days don’t count, and neither do weekend days you wouldn’t work anyway, so I can leave on a Friday, teach for three days midweek, and return the following Monday.”