(MONEY Magazine) – You are to be commended for the excellent March article entitled ''The Pros Flub Our Third Annual Tax-Return Test.'' If tax experts are not able to come up with a fairly close determination (less than 1% or 2% deviation) of the amount of income tax due, what hope is there for the rest of us who are not tax experts? What does this tell you about the so-called tax simplification act of 1986? Does this begin to show why it is so unfair that we have become a nation of taxpayers who are often harassed by the IRS and forced into time- consuming, costly disputes with the agency -- over areas of the tax code about which not even the experts and IRS personnel can agree? Unless and until our tax laws are truly simplified, and unless and until citizens have the same right under tax law as under criminal law (namely, innocent until proved guilty), the moral as well as economic strength and vitality of our country will continue to deteriorate. John T. Crone III San Antonio

Not only did several pros flub your third annual tax-return test, you flubbed the evaluation of your pros. Pat O'Malley of Tax Help in Omaha outperformed Mr. Campbell ((one of two certified public accountants singled out by MONEY as A-plus preparers)) by being $16 nearer the correct tax due, and he also filed his return 17 hours faster and for $499 less than Mr. Campbell. John C. Johnson Omaha

In evaluating the performance of the 50 tax pros who took our test, we deemed the process by which the preparers arrived at the figure for taxes due more important than the calculations they used in reaching it. Although Mr. O'Malley did come a shade closer to the correct tax due than did the two C.P.A.s we graded A-plus, he nevertheless made several significant mistakes on our hypothetical family's tax return. The two top contestants made no errors.