Psychic Accountant Gives<i> Numerology </i> New Meaning

So you’ve sent off your 1040, and now the fretting begins: Is there an audit in your future? You could ask Debi Becker--she’s a psychic--but her advice will be based more on the bottom line than on her voice from on high.

You see, she is also an accountant.

One business card identifies her as Debi Becker, psychic reader, the other as Deborah Becker, accountant and business manager.

It is no fortunetelling apparition who opens the door at her Van Nuys home/office. Indeed, Becker, 38, seems to be your average single mother in your average middle-income suburb. She’s even chaired a school fund-raiser.

Question: When did you first realize you had psychic powers?

Answer: I think I’ve been psychic my whole life. I’ve always had premonitions. I’d dream things, and then they would happen. I don’t know how it works.

Q.: You’re also a CPA?

A.: No, just an accountant. I have a four-year degree in accounting.

Q.: Do most of your accounting clients know that you’re a psychic?

A.: Yes. I only have one client who makes fun of it. He’s just not sure what to make of it. When he calls me, he says, “. . . And you knew I was calling you, right?’ I say, “Oh, yeah.”

Q.: Do you ever combine your two callings?

A.: They are absolutely, definitely intertwined. For example, I have a client who’s a mortgage broker. I kept telling her to watch this person in her office, that there was something wrong. That person forged some tax returns. It was a month after I told her before it surfaced.

Q.: Do you use your psychic powers in preparing tax returns?

A.: Absolutely. People come to me who’ve had their returns prepared elsewhere and have had an audit. By talking to their auditor on the phone, I already know what (the IRS) is looking for. I’ve never had an audit not go my way. And I’ve never had a client of mine audited.

Q.: That was my next question but of course you knew that.

A.: You’re right.

Q.: You say you’re clairvoyant and clairaudient--that a voice talks to you. Does this mean that you know what a taxpayer can get away with?

A.: I just told a client, an actor, that. I said, ‘This is a red flag.’ It has to feel right to me. I come from a very conservative place when it comes to accounting. In both accounting and my psychic work, I believe in morals and ethics. Fair is fair.

Q.: What is your definition of psychic ethics?

A.: You never “read” somebody unless they ask you to. You never tell somebody something unless it can do them some good to know. If you see something terrible that’s going to happen and there’s no way they can avoid it, you just don’t tell them. A lot of psychics say, “You’ve got some sort of curse on you and if you give me $500, $1,000, your luck’s going to change.”

Q.: Are there those who have come to you for accounting advice because you are also a psychic?

A.: I have clients who’ll say, “OK, now we’re done with accounting. Will you do a reading for me? I need to know what’s happening with my love life.” One woman who comes to me for readings has her money run through New York. I told her it wasn’t being managed properly. I don’t know how I knew that because I’d never seen the paperwork. I just knew. She wrote her accountant. It ended up she got a big check. I ended up with another accounting client.

Q.: Do some people suggest you’re a psychic crackpot?

A.: No, but there are those whose religious beliefs--and I respect that--say that it’s devil’s work. I’m not a witch. I don’t believe in magic.

Q.: Do you ever feel strange calling yourself a psychic?

A.: Yeah, especially a psychic accountant. As a joke, I used to have a tape on my phone, “This is the cosmic accountant. . . .”

Q.: Has an accounting client ever left you after finding out?

A.: No. It’s not like you walk into my house and see beads hanging and strange candles burning and incense going.

Q.: What do your clients most frequently ask Debi Becker, psychic?

A.: About business and money and relationships. And the occasional health question.

Q.: What does advice cost them?

A.: I don’t have a fee. They just have to leave something--it may just be a love note--to show that what I gave them had some value. And, yes, I do report the income on my taxes.

Q.: What mistake do people make most frequently on their tax returns?

A.: They get greedy. There are a lot of working people who never pay taxes. But there’s karmic debt involved in all that.

Q.: Do you do your own tax returns?

A.: Yes. I don’t do my own psychic readings, but there’s no emotions involved in tax returns.

Q.: As a psychic financial adviser, do you know something about stocks and bonds that the rest of us don’t?

A.: I don’t do stocks. I would send somebody to an expert. I also don’t gamble. And I don’t pick numbers or do Lotto. Anybody who tells you they can do that is full of it.

Q.: Would you buy real estate today in Southern California?

A.: My first answer would be no. But if I didn’t have a home I would, because you can get into something for 5% or 10% down and at least have what you’re paying in rent deductible on your taxes.

Q.: Have you ever dreamed that the government is going to eliminate that mortgage interest deduction?

A.: No.

Q.: Looking down the road--as a psychic--when do you see the economy turning around?

A.: What comes to me in my head is two years, a good two years.