03

Apr

Do You Need a Professional Tax Bisexual?

          Oh and dont let me tell u about TAXES! Did you know that it is NOT a law that you HAVE TO PAY TAXES? Wow..hold up..droppin 2 much knowledge.”

          Twitter “tweet” from “professional bisexual” Tila Tequila

It’s that time of year–time to start the long and arduous process of assembling records for our accountants so they can prepare our tax returns. As I dug into my files, the first thing that caught my eye was their bill for last year–$600!


Tila Tequila

“That’s it,” I said to my wife. “I’ve had it up to here with the high cost of tax preparation professionals.”

“You’re not going to go back to doing them yourself on TurboTax, are you?” she asked.

“Of course not,” I said. “Our taxes are complicated.  Because of my job we need to file in two different states.”

“But we only live in one.”

“I don’t make the rules.”

For people like me, who have to deal with our complicated tax laws every day, it’s easy to forget that the rebellion that led to the founding of this great nation was started by people who simply refused to pay oppressive taxes. I often pass by the Old State House in Boston, where the phrase “No Taxation Without Represenation” was shouted to an angry crowd, and never stop to think; what if I simply said “No,” as those courageous patriots did?


“Taxation without bisexuality is tyranny!”

 

And the worst part of it is, your typical C.P.A. is complicit in the government’s war against ordinary folks like you and me. Without complicated tax laws, there’s no way they could justify those high three-figure prices. “You know,” I said to my wife, “You’re right.” I got up from the dinner table and grabbed the phone book.


“We need a professional tax bisexual!”

 

“What are you looking for?” she asked with a tone that registered surprise at my sudden air of determination.

“Just you wait,” I said as I began to flip through the yellow pages. “Let’s see, bicycles, bidets, billboards, binoculars, bird and pet training–here we go, bisexuals!”

“Why do we need a bisexual?”

“The guys at the office tell me that Tila Tequila, professional bisexual, is the nation’s most aggressive tax advisor.”

“I don’t want to get in trouble with the IRS.”

“Don’t you see,” I said, barely able to contain my burgeoning spirit of rebellion. “We’re never going to get out of this rat race–off the treadmill of paying ever-higher taxes–unless we get some creative suggestions from a professional bisexual tax advisor.”


“Why are you itemizing? Just deduct everything!”

 

“Are you sure she’s a professional bisexual?”

Fair question. “Darling,” I said, “she wouldn’t be advertising unless she were a professional. And there’s no Bisexual Olympics coming up that she needs to maintain her amateur standing for.”

“I guess you’re right,” she said. “Well, why don’t you try and book an appointment.”

I scanned Tila’s ad. “I guess we don’t have to–we can simply follow her on Twitter.”

“What’s Twitter?”

“Twitter is a free social-messaging utility for staying connected in real time!”

“How does it work?”

“Well, you sign up to follow Tila, and she sends you ‘Tweets.’”

“What are Tweets?”

“Updates–photos–so you can see how much junk Tila’s got in her trunk. And advice, like which tax deductions are most likely to draw an IRS audit.”

 

“That doesn’t sound very professional to me,” my wife said, her left eyebrow arching upward in a little suspension bridge of skepticism.

“It’s how everybody markets themselves these days! Did you know Tila has over 200,000 followers world-wide?”

“Then she probably won’t have time for us.”

“There’s no way to know unless we try.”


“I am not depreciating these assets!”

 

I turned on my laptop and went to the Twitter home page, where I created an account and clicked on the “Find People” tab. It was the work of an instant to find nineteen different variations on “Tila Tequila.”

“This isn’t as easy as I thought,” I said. My wife looked over my shoulder and pointed at my computer screen the way people always do in advertisements.


“Yep–that’s a computer you’ve got in front of you there.”

 

“I’d say try the one called ‘OfficialTila,’” she said.  “It sounds official.”

“Okay.”

I signed up to “follow” OfficialTila, and instantly I was presented with a broad array of video clips and messages detailing Tila’s struggle to gain weight (currently 92 lbs., she’d like to be at 100), her mastery of bawdy epithets, and her 2012 Tax Preparation Guide.


It’s your choice: hire a dweeby accountant, or follow Tila on Twitter.

 

“See,” I said, and I allowed myself just a second’s worth of smug self-satisfaction. “We don’t need an expensive accountant. Tila’s Tweets are free!”

“I wasn’t doubting you, sweetie,” my wife said. “It’s just that . . . “

“What?”

“Well, getting tax advice from the hostess of Pants-Off Dance-Off is a little unconventional, wouldn’t you say?”

“You know,” I said, as patiently and temperately as I could, “it’s the accounting profession’s own fault. They have built-in conflicts between the audit side and their consulting businesses.”

“And Tila doesn’t?”

“No way. She’s focused solely on tax advice–she doesn’t provide AICPA audit, review or compilation services.”

My wife leaned back and exhaled. “You know, I’ve been wondering if my Pilates classes are deductible,” she said.

“I don’t think so, but why don’t we check with Tila?”

I scrolled down Tila’s Tweets–”who keeps it THE REALEST,” “ONE MORE PIC OK–LAST CALL FOR ALCOHOL,” “Deductibility of PERSONAL training, Pilates and spinning class expenses against ordinary income.”

“I think I found something.”

“Let me see,” my wife said, as she sat down next to me.

“Right here,” I said, as I pointed to the Tweet, which read “Don’t you be doin’ no Pilates if you want a honkin’ donk, girlfriend.”

“What’s a donk?” my wife asked.

“‘Donk’ is shorthand for ‘ba-donka-donk’, an Ebonics expression for an extremely curvaceous female behind.”


I Kid You Not Dept.: A Ba-Donka-Donk computer mouse.

 

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Hmm–let’s see. She’s also issued a TTASB Exposure Draft . . .”

“What’s that?”

“A Tila Tequila Accounting Standards Board conceptual framework for dealing with a particular tax issue.”

“So what does it say?”

“It says that it is not the law that you have to pay taxes!”

“Wow–that’s great!”

“So deductibility is irrelevant.”

I put my arm around my wife. “You know maybe–just maybe–if we scrimp and save all those taxes we’ve been paying, we’ll be able to afford a vacation home some day.”

“That would be nice,” she said dreamily. “I don’t know why we never consulted with Tila before,” she added.

“Oh yes you do,” I replied, not letting her off the hook.

“Why?”

“You cancelled my subscription to Maxim, the international men’s magazine with the revealing pictorials!”

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Death, Taxes and More Taxes.”

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11

Apr

Ask the Tax Man

April 15th is drawing near, and readers of this column are racing–hey, no running in the halls!–to finish their tax forms.  Here are answers to some questions posed by taxpayers who have–once again–put off their 1040′s until the last minute.


Deductibility of this item is up in the air.

Dear Tax Man:

I am a baton twirler at Orono Consolidated Regional High School.  This girl I go to school with is fine when she’s with me by herself, but when these two other girls we know are around, she completely ignores me.  I work weekends at Dog ‘n Suds, a hot dog restaurant, when we don’t have a football or basketball game.  What I want to know is, can I deduct the cost of my batons against my W-2 earnings?

Heather Sacchetti, Orono, Maine

Heather:

Expenses are deductible only to the extent incurred in a taxpayer’s trade or business.  I assume your position as baton twirler is unpaid, so you have no income apart from wages.  IRS Reg. section 1.103(a)(6)(iii) provides that batons are a capital asset for which current deductions are not allowed.  I will forward your remaining question to the ”Teen Beat!” column.


Deductible in rare cases.

Tax Man–

My wife Sue Ellen and I sometimes go out with her brother Jim and his wife on Saturday nights.  After we split the bill, he always takes the “customer” copy–he says he can write the whole thing off as a business expense.  Mr. Tax Man–I don’t think that’s right.  He’s a big eater, but half of that bill is ours.  How can he get credit for our food?  I usually get steak, while Sue Ellen is partial to froofy dishes like “chef”s salad” since she is trying to lose weight.  Is there an IRS hotline where you can turn in tax cheats?  Also, do you get a bounty?

Clell Furnell, Joplin MO

Mr. Furnell–

While the integrity of our tax system depends on the honesty of millions of self-reporting taxpayers like you, the consequences of a bounty system are too horrible to contemplate–neighbor turning against neighbor, or even, as in your case, in-laws snitching on each other.  Bounties are for wild animals like wolves and coyotes, not our fellow human beings.


Beefalo:  Tastes like chicken.

Hey there Mr. Tax Man–

I’m an assistant sales rep for a socket wrench company.  I met this girl at a networking event the Chamber of Commerce put on.  She tried to sell me a “beefalo” tax shelter.  I guess they got buffalo to mate with cows and now there’s a breed of animal that produces leaner meat for hamburgers and what not.  Believe me, it was a great ice breaker to talk about two different species getting it on!  Anyway, I called her up the following week and asked her out.  She was kind of vague and said maybe she’d think about it if I came in for a $1,000 minimum investment.  That doesn’t strike me as ethical.  What do you think?

Eugene Putnam, Springfield, Illinois

Mr. Putnam–

The IRS has cracked down on abusive tax shelters, which promise large up-front deductions in exchange for investments paid in over time.  Unless you are in a very high tax bracket–and I assume based on your position you are not–there is no benefit to be gained from sheltering what little income you have.  Most tax shelters have failed to produce the gains promised by their promoters, and some have resulted in criminal charges.  Why not offer the woman a socket wrench set in exchange for the shelter?  They’re probably comparable in value.


Ace, f/k/a Orel.

Dear Mr. Tax Man–

I am trying desperately to save for retirement.  I know, I know–I should have started a long time ago.  Easy for you to say–you probably know all the loopholes.  I had three children to raise and a no-count husband who spent all our money on bass boats, jet skis and dirt bikes.  I gave him his walking papers two years ago and first thing he does is bleach his hair, buy a Dodge Sidewinder and tell me that instead of “Orel” he prefers to be called “Ace” from now on.  I only have Social Security to fall back on.  Is it too late for me to start an IRA, and would that help me on my taxes?

Ms. (formerly Mrs.) Marge Nowack (formerly Buford), Council Bluffs, Iowa


Bass boat: One more stupid thing he wasted money on.

Dear Ms./Mrs./Nowack/Buford:

IRAs are designed to help people in lower brackets save for the future at the same time that they reduce their current tax liability.  The sooner you take decisive steps to secure your golden years, the better off you’ll be.  The same is true of men–you should have dumped “Ace” a long time ago.  Large exenditures from discretionary income for capital equipment devoted to recreational uses are an early warning sign of a man who is not good for the long haul.  You should have seen that Sidewinder coming a mile away.

Mr. Tax Man:

Help!  I was just about finished with my taxes last night when I noticed the “Paperwork Reduction Act Notice” on the form.  I read it and it says the estimated time to do the whole form is 104 minutes!  You get 45 minutes for research, 4 minutes to “learn about the law or the form,” 35 minutes (!) to prepare the form, and 20 minutes to copy, assemble and send it to the IRS.  Mr. Tax Man–I probably spent two weeks just getting my receipts together (okay, they were a mess) and three days working on the form, and now I find that I exceeded the maximum.  What am I supposed to do–call a time out?

Sandy Beimford, Shaker Heights, Ohio


“Tax klatch”

Sandy–

First of all–calm down!  Your tax form is not a test, and the Paperwork Reduction Act is there to help, not hurt you.  The IRS must use reasonable efforts to make its forms simple and understandable, and to reduce the paperwork burden it imposes on citizens–that’s all the notice means.  My suggestion?  Take a warm bath by candle light with soft music playing, then dry yourself off, discard Schedule A and take the standard deductions.

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Death, Taxes, and More Taxes.”

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06

Apr

IRS Turns to Eunuchs For Tough Tax Collection Cases

News item: Officials in India have used eunuchs to collect unpaid taxes.

HAZARD, Kentucky.  Ray Bob Suggins, a career revenue officer for the Internal Revenue Service in this small town at the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers, thought he had seen it all in his thirty years collecting taxes for Uncle Sam.


Hazard, Kentucky

“I’ve seized a family’s satellite dish, I’ve put a lien on a guy’s blue tick hound–everything,” he says with a laugh.  But his face clouds up with the latest directive from what he refers to sarcastically as “headquarters”–the national office of the IRS in Washington, D.C.


“Hey–don’t take that!  ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ is on tonight!”

“Those guys sitting in their offices back east don’t know the people of Kentucky,” he says with emphasis.  “Where they come up with some of their ideas I’ll never know.”

The idea that has Suggins’ dander up is Rev. Proc. 06-137, which will require IRS regional offices to implement “Project Eunuch”, an attempt to replicate in the U.S. the success Indian officials have had using eunuchs–castrated males who dress as women–to collect taxes.


Eunuchs in India.

“You can’t argue with the numbers,” says IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman.  “Hijras“–as eunuchs are referred to in India–”have produced remarkable results through the use of embarrassment, a tactic we have overlooked in the past.”  And indeed in Patna, an Indian city with a population of nearly a half million where only about 2,000 citizens pay their property taxes on time, local officials report that eunuchs collected 425,000 rupees ($9,240) in their first day on the job.


Shulman:  “They do this cool dance, sort of like this.”

In India hijras accost taxpayers on the street–taunting, cursing or touching their hair and cheeks–or set up outside a residence where they chant and dance loudly until a deadbeat relents and pays up.  The eunuchs, who for the most part live in poverty because of their status as sexual outsiders, are paid a commission on what they collect.  “We did a cost-benefit analysis,” says Shulman, “and eunuchs produce better results than boring techniques like putting a lien on somebody’s house and waiting for them to sell.  Plus a lot of them are very attractive with all that makeup they wear.”


Before.

So Suggins agreed to be a “guinea pig,” subjecting himself to castration at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Louisville in exchange for two years’ extra credit towards his pension.  “I should be able to retire at age 60,” he says as he squirms in his chair due to the discomfort that persists following the operation.  “I figger it’s worth it if I live that long.”


After

As painful as it was to lose what he refers to as “the family jewels”, what comes next is even harder in his view.  “I got to dress up like an Indian woman and go door-to-door and jingle my bells” to make delinquent taxpayers pay up.  “That ain’t gonna be easy.”


Coffee Pot Cafe:  First refill is free.

After Suggins applies cheap rouge, powder and lipstick, he heads over to the Coffee Pot Café where he know Lyle Oehrke will be sitting with his buddies at their regular table, sipping coffee before he heads out to work–or not–as a used car salesman at O’Connor Chevrolet-Buick on South Highway 65.  “Lyle spends most of his paycheck every Friday at the Golden Palomino,” a “gentlemen’s club” just outside the city limits where he is generous with tips for the “pole dancers” and strippers who work there.


Where Lyle works–sort of.

Suggins appears at the entrance to the Coffee Pot, spies Oehrke over in the corner, and goes into his carefully-rehearsed “song and dance”, a tribute to the Indian god Krishna in the form of Mohini, a beautiful woman who is a central figure in the culture of the hijras. “Hey, hey, hey,” he chants as he claps rhythmically, swinging his sari back and forth.  “I’m really gonna make your day.”

Oehrke is at first surprised, then dismissive.  “Well look who’s here,” he says with a knowing grin.  “If it ain’t Sweetie Pie Suggins, lookin’ for a date.”  He laughs and his friends join him, although their nervous tension is apparent.


“Pay up now, or I’ll have a cow!”

“I’m from the IRS, and I’m gonna lift up my dress, dress, dress–unless”-Suggins stops for dramatic effect-”you clean up your overdue taxes, penalties and interest mess!”


“I wish I could wear me somethin’ like that!”

Nae Ann Wingersheek, long-time waitress at “The Pot” as locals here refer to the restaurant, comes to the table for a last round of refills and to present the check.  “You all gonna sit here all day or go out and earn a livin’?” she says with a good-natured jab at the group’s indifferent work habits.  “Hey, Ray,” she says to Suggins when she notices the tax collector, his arms above his head as he rings his finger cymbals.

“Hi Nae Ann,” Ray replies as he scoots back a step to allow her to get by.

“I like that outfit,” she says, referring to the saffron sari that he flirtatiously lifts from time to time, threatening to expose himself but pulling back in the hope that the full range of tax collection remedies permitted by the new IRS procedure won’t be necessary.

“You don’t think it makes me look fat?” Ray asks.

She studies him for a moment.  “From the front-no.   From the back, it looks like two hogs fightin’ under a sheet!”

The table bursts out in laughter, which Suggins joins in with good spirits.  “I walked right into that one,” he says with a grin.

The table of regulars starts to pony up and, when Suggins sees Oehrke pull his wallet from his back pocket, he pounces.


Krishna says “Pony up”.

“Lord Krishna, all-powerful, crush this deadbeat like a grasshopper beneath your heel–he is about to pay for his meal!”

“C’mon, Ray,” Oehrke pleads.  “You know I got alimony to pay.”

“Alimony, palimony-don’t indulge in matrimony!”

“And I need my car to get to work.”

“Why should I worry about your work, when you treat your fellow taxpayers like a jerk?”

Everyone in the restaurant is watching now; Oehrke’s friends have ponied up, and tax collector and deadbeat stare each other down, mano a former-mano.

“All right, goddamn it,” Oehrke says with disgust.  “Here,” he says as he pulls a roll of bills out of his back pocket and counts off two hundred dollars in twenties.

“The IRS Commissioner thanks you very much,” Suggins chants as he picks up his haul, “but I’ll tell him for the record you were not a soft touch.”

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Death, Taxes and More Taxes.”

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29

Mar

Tattoos Find Favor Among Busy CPAs at Tax Time

CHICAGO.  Sheryl Wilkins, a senior tax manager at a mid-sized accounting firm, is dreading next month’s tax filing crunch.

“It ruins your life,” she says.  “You put on weight from the late-night pizza and you get wrinkles from lack of sleep.”  So she’s preparing with a body modification she hopes will make her more efficient–tattooing the tax code on her arms.


“1031 exchanges?  Let me lift up my camisole and I’ll have your answer in a jiffy!”

“I waste a lot of time running back and forth, looking things up,” she notes.  “If somebody’s checked the code out of the library, you have to go back to your computer and search the IRS website, but I get distracted by the pop-up ads and end up shopping at potterybarn.com.”


“‘Accelerated Depreciation’–Awesome!”

Once confined to marginal subcultures such as carnival workers, sailors and rappers, tattoos are increasingly viewed by professionals as a way to boost productivity.  “I get all kinds of white-collar types in here,” says Miki “Inkgirl” Gargiulo of Wicked Tattoos on the city’s North Side.  “They don’t want simple-minded ‘Mom’ or ‘Semper Fi’ tats.  They’re knowledge workers in the information economy, so I can charge them more than some punk from Evanston who just wants ‘Kurt Cobain Died for Your Sins’ on his bicep.”

 

Sheryl’s specialty is corporate tax, so she asks Gargiulo to inscribe Internal Revenue Code Subchapter C, Corporate Distributions, on her left arm, and Subchapter N, Tax based on income from sources within or without the United States, on her right.  “That’s my favorite,” she says as she winces a bit from the sting of the needle.


“Section 1369?  I thought you said Section 1693!”

Her co-workers say they will use Sheryl as a resource once the painstaking task has been completed.  “I’m always forgetting things,” her colleague Jim Visback notes with a laugh.  “Like, does a contribution to capital satisfy section 118 of the Code if it’s expended for the acquisition or construction of tangible property described in section 1231(b)–or is it the other way around?”  Visback says he hopes Wilkins will have particularly important provisions of the tax code tattooed on her neck, so he can refer to them even when she wears a long-sleeved blouse or sweater to work.


Maori accountant

Tattoos were invented by the Maoris, a Polynesian aboriginal group native to New Zealand.  Maori tribal leader Nga Tamatoa said he is pleased that busy CPA’s have adopted his tribe’s traditional technique to deal with the complexity of America’s tax code.  “Since Sheryl’s an accountant I’ve got no problem with that,” he said.  ”If she were a lawyer it’d be different.”

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Death, Taxes–and More Taxes.”

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14

Apr

“Girls of the IRS” Calendar a Hit With Male Taxpayers

WASHINGTON, D.C. The U.S. federal income tax system depends on voluntary compliance by hundreds of millions of citizens, a fact that isn’t lost on Lois Lerner, director of the IRS’s exempt-organizations office.


“Don’t use your credit card.  Put it on your home equity line–it’s deductible!”

“We’re in the tax collection business,” she says, “but we’re up against a lot of competing entertainment sources. Cable TV, internet gambling and Indian casinos. We know you’d rather give your money to them.”


IRS Babe-of-the-Month presentation.

So Lerner has come up with the agency’s first-ever promotional item; a revealing “Girls of the IRS” calendar that features revenue agents and other female IRS personnel from around the country in states of undress that are more revealing than the average citizen’s list of itemized deductions on Form 1040, Schedule B.


“If you think I’m sexy–wait till you get to the Alternative Minimum Tax calculation!”

“It’s been a big hit with guys who have discretionary income after their wives or girlfriends get through with them,” Lerner laughs. The calendars cost $19.95, which can be applied as a credit against the tax on adjusted gross income.


“And then I put a tax lien on his pickup truck–was he hot!”

The calendars are also popular at other government agencies such as the General Accounting Office, where Assistant Auditor Claude Erskine likes to stare at the current “IRS Babe of the Month” from the time he gets in until his lunch break. “That way,” he says, “I have all afternoon to stare out the window for something different to do.”


“There’s a reason we call it the Form EZ!”

Julia Sechrest, a revenue officer in the Kansas City, Missouri region of the IRS, says she has received complimentary emails, a marriage proposal and even a death threat since being featured as “Miss April” just as tax returns were due last spring. “Many of your vigilante types are actually nice men once you let them know that we really do have black helicopters,” she says with a shy smile. “I just tell them–’You be nice or I’ll come squoosh your silly little resistance group like a June bug just to watch the juice run out!’”

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Death, Taxes & More Taxes.”

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12

Apr

IRS Seeks New Blood With Teen Tax Talent Search

KANSAS CITY, Mo.  This Midwestern city lies close to both the population and geographic centers of the United States, and at this time of the year it is ground zero for another subject that is close to the heart of America–taxes.


Kansas City, Mo., regional IRS Center

“We’re like a shark,” says Internal Revenue Service Regional Director Gene Rollins.  “If we don’t keep moving, constantly searching for new blood, the nation’s tax cheats will swim away from us, and we’ll have to bite the leg off some unsuspecting surfer who makes so little money he probably qualifies for no-tax status.”


Budding IRS officers.

So every spring, the IRS holds the finals of its “Teen Tax Talent Search”, a nationwide tournament for high school students who dream of becoming the tax collectors of tomorrow at IRS Regional Headquarters here.


“That temporary regulation was only effective for tax years through 2002, you stunod!”

“It’s really fun,” says Marcy Oberg, of New Trier East High School near Chicago.  “You get to role-play, and if you win you get a trophy, plus it’s like a big slumber party with the other kids,” she notes ruefully.  “We were up way too late last night, going over the home office deduction limits.”


The eventual winner.

At the beginning of the school year in September contestants are given a set of facts involving a typical family of four and their tax problems.   Students do research and prepare for extemporaneous sessions in which a variation on the standard family profile is thrown at them to respond to at district, regional and state qualifying tournaments before they advance to nationals.


Kids watch a master at work:  “You can’t deduct gas to go to your job.”

“It teaches you to think on your feet, or rather your seat,” says the IRS’s Rollins, “since most revenue officers work at standard issue metal desks.  We want to find the kids who have built-in b.s. detectors, if you know what I mean,” he says.  “Young men and women who know how to say ‘no’ and mean it.”


“What’s this credit for a beefalo tax shelter?”

Going into the finals Lee Ann Widmer of Keokuk, Iowa is in first-place, after staring down a melodramatic performance by Sarah Jane Patterson, a young woman who took home the 1st runner-up trophy for Dramatic Interpretation at her state Speech and Debate Tournament.

“My husband left me and cleaned out my bank account and now I’ve got a tax lien on my house,” Sarah Jane says.  “Can’t you help me with my problem?” she asks Lee Ann.


Lee Ann and Sarah Jane:  Friends to the end.

Lee Ann looks her “taxpayer” squarely in the eye and says “If I wanted to solve problems, I’d buy a ‘Find-a-Word’ puzzle book,” she says, and the panel of judges gives her a 9.5 for brusqueness, a 9.7 for lack of helpfulness and a 9.9–her highest score ever–for sheer insensitivity.

“Very nice, Lee Ann,” Rollins says, before Stan Wyzorminski of Larry Bird Consolidated Regional High School in Terre Haute, Indiana, takes his seat behind the metal desk.  His taxpayer is Stacy Strunk, a “Goth”-type girl from his high school who has starred in a little theatre production of “Mourning Becomes Electra” as well as staffing the Drama Society’s annual Halloween Haunted House.


Stacy out of her Halloween costume.

“You cannot imagine what I’m going through,” she says through tears that cause mascara to run down her cheeks.  “Our house was wiped out by a tornado–I saw my three children and all my receipts for my self-employed business blown away in a second,” she sobs.  “All I’m asking for is an extension–a little time until my husband gets back on his feet after open-heart surgery to remove psoriasis from his aorta.  Please . . .”

Wyzorminksi looks down at Stacy’s Form 1040, then back up at her with a steely glint in his eye.  “You know what I’m gonna do for you,” he begins.  “I’m gonna bring a giant-sized box of Kleenex to your foreclosure sale and bawl my eyes out.  No extension!”

The other contestants seated in the auditorium gasp, and then there is silence.  They know it’s all over but, like baseball players watching a tape-measure shot by Barry Bonds, they can’t help but admire the work of a giant who stands head and shoulders above them.  They burst out in cheers and all that’s left is the counting–9.9′s across the board.


Rollins:  “Kids, you were all terrific today.”

“Lee Ann was good, you’ll see her back her next year in the finals,” says Rollins, “but that kid Wyzorminski–I wouldn’t be surprised if he becomes IRS Commissioner some day!”

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Death, Taxes and More Taxes.”

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17

Mar

Tax Code Found to Be Safe But Powerful Aphrodisiac

WASHINGTON, D.C.  It’s getting close to tax time, and across the nation women are nursing two-month-old babies they delivered in January.


“You are the cutest widdle $3,200 deduction from ordinary income mommy’s ever seen!”

Demographers have noticed that a disproportionate number of the nation’s children are being born during the first month of the year, and the Internal Revenue Service believes it has discovered why.


Shulman:  “The tax code has always been a tremendous turn-on for me personally.”

“Our nation’s tax code, while complex, can be a safe but potent means of increasing the libido of married couples who file joint returns,” said IRS Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman.  “There’s the fighting over ‘Why don’t you make more money?’ and then–the make-up sex.”


Looking at naughty forms on the IRS website helps couples get in the mood. 

Taxpayers seem to agree with Stiff’s analysis.  Linda Barnes of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, says tax time is a period of increased intimacy with her husband Duane, who prepares their taxes using off-the-shelf software.  “Just say it real slow and sultry-like–’Turbotax–Turbotax’.  It kinda gets to you.”


Church ice cream social:  “Lloyd, is that an ice cream cone in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?”

Others say they use the stimulus of tax preparation to avoid the side effects of other erectile dysfunction remedies.  “My husband Lloyd thought he was going blind from Viagra,” says Cindi Kennon of Hoxie, Arkansas, ”and with Cialis he’d walk around all weekend with a lump in his pants–not good for a Sunday night ice cream social,” at the Bethany Baptist Church where the Kennons worship.  “On the other hand, alcohol is like prunes–is two beers enough?  Is six too many?  You never know.”

 
Muu-Muus:  Also available in men’s sizes.

There are even couples who use tax-based role playing to add an extra kick to the Internal Revenue Code’s 9,545 pages of erotic stimulus.  “We introduce cross-dressing into our love-making routine during April,” says Anna Simon of Grosse Point, Michigan.  “I buy my husband Jim some plus-size panty hose and a muu-muu, and he plays the poor, pitiful housewife while I pretend I’m an IRS auditor.”  After scolding him for improper deductions of commuting expenses from W-2 wages, Mrs. Simon spanks her husband and allows him to file an amended return correcting his error.

 
“All of our private suites are booked right now, but I can put you on the table in the conference room.”

Tax-preparation giant H&R Block says it will add private “consultation” rooms to its offices to handle the needs of couples whose personal tastes include exhibitionism.  “The guys come in here and want to show me how big their mortgage interest deductions are,” said branch manager Herb Webb of the firm’s Council Bluffs, Iowa office.  “Frankly, they don’t pay me enough to watch that kind of sicko stuff.”

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Death, Taxes and More Taxes.”

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09

Apr

Ask the Tax Man

April 15th is drawing near, and readers of this column are racing–Hey, no running in the halls!–to finish their tax forms.  Here are answers to some questions posed by taxpayers who have–once again–put off their 1040′s until the last minute.

Deductibility of this item is up in the air.

Dear Tax Man:

I am a baton twirler at Orono Consolidated Regional High School.  This girl I go to school with is fine when she’s with me by herself, but when these two other girls we know are around, she completely ignores me.  I work weekends at Dog ‘n Suds, a hot dog restaurant, when we don’t have a football or basketball game.  What I want to know is, can I deduct the cost of my batons against my W-2 earnings?

Heather Sacchetti, Orono, Maine

Heather:

Expenses are deductible only to the extent incurred in a taxpayer’s trade or business.  I assume your position as baton twirler is unpaid, so you have no income apart from wages.  IRS Reg. section 1.103(a)(6)(iii) provides that batons are a capital asset for which current deductions are not allowed.  I will forward your remaining question to the ”Teen Beat!” column.

Deductible in rare cases.

Tax Man–

My wife Sue Ellen and I sometimes go out with her brother Jim and his wife on Saturday nights.  After we split the bill, he always takes the “customer” copy–he says he can write the whole thing off as a business expense.  Mr. Tax Man–I don’t think that’s right.  He’s a big eater, but half of that bill is ours.  How can he get credit for our food?  I usually get steak, while Sue Ellen is partial to froofy dishes like “chef”s salad” since she is trying to lose weight.  Is there an IRS hotline where you can turn in tax cheats?  Also, do you get a bounty?

Clell Furnell, Joplin MO

Mr. Furnell–

While the integrity of our tax system depends on the honesty of millions of self-reporting taxpayers like you, the consequences of a bounty system are too horrible to contemplate–neighbor turning against neighbor, or even, as in your case, in-laws snitching on each other.  Bounties are for wild animals like wolves and coyotes, not our fellow human beings.

Beefalo:  Tastes like chicken.

Hey there Mr. Tax Man–

I’m an assistant sales rep for a socket wrench company.  I met this girl at a networking event that the Chamber of Commerce put on.  She tried to sell me a “beefalo” tax shelter.  I guess they got buffalo to mate with cows and now there’s a breed of animal that produces leaner meat for hamburgers and what not.  Believe me, it was a great ice breaker to talk about two different species getting it on!  Anyway, I called her up the following week and asked her out.  She was kind of vague and said maybe she’d think about it if I came in for a $1,000 minimum investment.  That doesn’t strike me as ethical.  What do you think?

Eugene Putnam, Springfield, Illinois

Mr. Putnam–

The IRS has cracked down on abusive tax shelters, which promise large up-front deductions in exchange for investments paid in over time.  Unless you are in a very high tax bracket–and I assume based on your position you are not–there is no benefit to be gained from sheltering what little income you have.  Most tax shelters have failed to produce the gains promised by their promoters, and some have resulted in criminal charges.  Why not offer the woman a socket wrench set in exchange for the shelter?  They’re probably comparable in value.

Ace, f/k/a Orel.

Dear Mr. Tax Man–

I am trying desperately to save for retirement.  I know, I know–I should have started a long time ago.  Easy for you to say–you probably know all the loopholes.  I had three children to raise and a no-count husband who spent all our money on bass boats, jet skis and dirt bikes.  I gave him his walking papers two years ago and first thing he does is bleach his hair, buy a Dodge Sidewinder and tell me that instead of “Orel” he prefers to be called “Ace” from now on.  I only have Social Security to fall back on.  Is it too late for me to start an IRA, and would that help me on my taxes?

Ms. (formerly Mrs.) Marge Nowack (formerly Buford), Council Bluffs, Iowa

Bass boat: One more stupid thing he wasted money on.

Dear Ms./Mrs./Nowack/Buford:

IRAs are designed to help people in lower brackets save for the future at the same time that they reduce their current tax liability.  The sooner you take decisive steps to secure your golden years, the better off you’ll be.  The same is true of men–you should have dumped “Ace” a long time ago.  Large exenditures from discretionary income for capital equipment devoted to recreational uses are an early warning sign of a man who is not good for the long haul.  You should have seen that Sidewinder coming a mile away.

Mr. Tax Man:

Help!  I was just about finished with my taxes last night when I noticed the “Paperwork Reduction Act Notice” on the form.  I read it and it says the estimated time to do the whole form is 104 minutes!  You get 45 minutes for research, 4 minutes to “learn about the law or the form,” 35 minutes (!) to prepare the form, and 20 minutes to copy, assemble and send it to the IRS.  Mr. Tax Man–I probably spent two weeks just getting my receipts together (okay, they were a mess) and three days working on the form, and now I find out that time has already run out.  What am I supposed to do–call a time out?

Sandy Beimford, Shaker Heights, Ohio

“Tax klatch”

Sandy–

First of all–calm down!  Your tax form is not a test, and the Paperwork Reduction Act is there to help, not hurt you.  The IRS must use reasonable efforts to make its forms simple and understandable, and to reduce the paperwork burden it imposes on citizens–that’s all the notice means.  My suggestion?  Take a warm bath by candle light with soft music playing, then dry yourself off, discard Schedule A and take the standard deductions.

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30

Dec

At the Boston Tanning Bed Party

The new health reform bill imposes a $2.7 billion tax on indoor tanning salons. 
                                                                     The Boston Herald

As we poured out of the Old South Meeting House into the cold December night, our hearts were burning with passion, set ablaze by the inspirational words that Samuel Adams, Whig leader and beer nut, had spoken inside.

“This meeting can do nothing further to save the country!” Adams had proclaimed in the face of colonial Governor Hutchinson’s intransigence.  “Let’s go pound down a couple cold ones!”

At that pre-arranged signal, we headed towards Griffin’s Wharf–me, Chastiti and Chariti.  The three of us were the proprietors of Ye Olde Sun ‘n Spa, the only patriot-owned tanning salon in Boston.  The girls had changed the spelling of their names to better reflect the freedom we all yearned for, and were now parading the streets of Boston with double smiley-face dotted “i’s” in open defiance of strict British orthographic laws.

Yeah, baby!

“It’s a good thing our hearts are burning with passion, as the narrator said up above,” Chariti said.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Because otherwise my nipples would be standing at attention in the cold December night.”

“Is John Hancock coming?” Chastiti asked.

“No–he’s teaching an Extreme Penmanship class tonight,” I said.

“Bummer,” Chariti said.

We moved in silence towards the three ships that bore the awful freight–untaxed tanning beds exported to the colonies by the East India Company.  Our very livelihoods were at stake.  Chastiti and Chariti had been working at the Bay Colony Tourism Bureau, where they were responsible for “re-branding” Massachusetts to improve its negative image among British conventioneers.  Chastiti had come up with the winning theme of the ad campaign–”History So Thick You Can Hit it With a Stick!”–but Chariti’s proposed state slogan–”Massachusetts: You’ll Come for the Weather, You’ll Stay for the Taxes!”–had drawn the ire of colonial officials, who suspected that it was a veiled jab at our British masters.

“No ith not!” Chariti had cried out as the redcoats dragged her from her cubicle, barely giving her time to collect her picture of her pet ox.  ”I do not haf mah tongue in mah cheek!” she screamed, but it was all to no avail.  Chastiti had resigned in protest, and we had plotted over mugs of grog to start a business–what could be more American than that?

 

But now the Brits threatened to undermine our little enterprise by taxing our tanning beds!  We weren’t going to take it lying down–that was for our customers!

“Everybody ready?” I asked.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Chariti asked right back.

“What?”

“We’re supposed to disguise ourselves as redskins,” Chariti said.  If it hadn’t been the middle of the 18th century, she would have added “Duh!”

“Why would we do that, when we can have a beautiful spray-on tan?” Chastiti asked.

 ”So . . . a great-looking summer tan, with none of the unhealthy side effects?” I asked.

“That’s right!” Chastiti said.  She pulled an atomizer out of her purse and squirted us both in the face.  “There,” she said with satisfaction.  “You look like you just got back from Boca!”

Ready for rebellion!

I returned the favor and we boarded the ship along with the other Bronze Goddesses and Adonis’s.  The British offered no resistance–”I’m just here to oppress you miserable curs,” the captain said–and we made swift work of the offending tanning beds.

“Here goes the Sunquest Bronze Bomber!” Chastiti squealed.

“And here goes the Tropical Rayz 1800!” Chariti yelped as the two brown ‘n serve ovens hit the water.

I put my arms around my two fellow revolutionaries, and we watched as the splash rings spread outward in the moonlight.  “Future generations of Americans will thank us,” I said with a lump in my throat.

“Because we spared them from possible skin cancer?” Chariti asked.

“No, because we’ll offer special Spring Break and Pre-Prom Tanning Packages!”

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15

Apr

Geithner Confers Leona Helmsley Award on Top IRS Tax Cheat

WASHINGTON, D.C.  Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner today bestowed the IRS’s annual Leona Helmsley Award on Jim H. Liu of Diamond Bar, California for outstanding performance in evading federal taxes by a government employee.

“Great job, Jim.”

“The American government depends on voluntary compliance by millions of taxpayers to fund vital public services,” Geither said as he handed a gold-plated “Leona” statue to Liu.  “Those few who don’t comply should be singled out for praise, hired by the IRS, or nominated to cabinet posts.”

You wear the badge, you get to cadge.

Liu is an IRS agent who pleaded guilty in March to filing a tax return claiming a loss on a profitable real estate transaction.  “The tax code is very difficult to understand,” said Geithner, whose failure to pay taxes on income and improper deductions for summer camp expenses almost derailed his nomination.  “If you’re an IRS employee you get sick of it, the same way you lose your taste for snow-caps if you work in a candy factory, so you just ignore it.”

Snow caps:  Don’t eat too many.

Leona Helmsley was the widow a New York real estate magnate who said “Only the little people pay taxes,” according to a former employee who testified at her tax evasion trial.

Helmsley:  “I . . . look . . . marvelous!”

Liu emerged victorious from a crowded field that included former Senator Tom Daschle and Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, both nominees to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration; former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, who was appointed by President Obama to serve as United States Trade Representative; and Geithner, who recused himself rather than be faced with the difficult task of handing himself the award and then thanking himself for it.

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