Taxing Laws In a May 27 Washington Post column, MHC visiting lecturer of complex organizations John O. Fox argues that the country’s tax structure needs a lot more fixing than the recent tax cut can accomplish. Fox, author of the recently released If Americans Really Understood The Income Tax, says that the current tax code is hopelessly complex and adds that the thicket of laws mainly benefits affluent taxpayers and shifts the tax burden to the less well off. “I predict we’ll be fuming over all the paperwork we’ll confront next April—even more tax forms, and even more than the current 144 pages of instructions, forcing more of us into even greater dependence on expensive experts to prepare our returns,” Fox says. Read all about it at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A80293-2001May26.html.

All in the Family There’s growing interest in the idea of shared parenting, according to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer that quotes from psychology professor Francine Deutsch’s pioneering book on the subject. In spite of obstacles, Lini S. Kadaba writes, surveys show that a growing number of men desire a work schedule that allows more time with family. In the article, published April 4, Kadaba quotes Deutsch’s book, Halving It All: How Equally Shared Parenting Works (Harvard University Press, 1999): “Although equality may still be the exception in American households, men and women today increasingly believe in gender equality.” Kadaba writes about the fledgling, nonprofit Third Path Institute of Philadelphia, which shares Deutsch’s egalitarian philosophy of childcare.