But regardless of whether you sympathize with celebrities, they often get bum steers from advisers, as clearly happened with Wesley Snipes.

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If you feel like paying 15% would be a lot better than 35%, you might sympathize with the private equity firms hoping to hang on to their coveted carried interest perk.

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Margaret Thatcher would no more have identified herself as a woman, or claimed special pleading that she was a mere frail girl, or asked you to sympathize with her because of her sex, than she would have called up the Kremlin and asked how quickly she could surrender.

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