Pound of Flesh Here, Pound of Flesh There,
First thing you know You got Two Pounds of Flesh
by Dave Barry
Income-Tax Time is here again, and I'm sure that the No. 1 question on the
mind of the anxious taxpayers is: Do we have a new Internal Revenue Service
commissioner named "Fred"?
I am pleased to report that yes, we do. In fact, if you look on page 2 of
your IRS Form 1040 Instruction Booklet Written By Nuclear Physicists For
Nuclear Physicists, you'll find a nice letter from Commissioner Fred, in which
he states, on behalf of all the fine men and women and attack dogs down at the
IRS: "Let us know if we can do more."
I know I speak for taxpayers everywhere when I say: "NO! Really, Fred!
You've done enough!" I am thinking of such helpful IRS innovations as the
Wrong Answer Hotline, wherein, if you're having trouble understanding a
section of the IRS Secret Tax Code, all you have to do is call the IRS
Taxpayer Assistance Program, and in a matter of seconds, thanks to
computerized electronics, you are placed on hold for several hours before
finally being connected to trained IRS personnel dispensing tax advice that is
statistically no more likely to be correct than if you asked Buster the Wonder
Horse to indicate the answer by stomping it in the dirt.
Ha ha! Speaking as a married person filing jointly, let me stress that I
am JUST KIDDING here, because I know that the folks at IRS have a terrific
sense of humor. Down at headquarters, they often pass the time while waiting
for their cattle prods to recharge by sending hilarious tax-related jokes to
each other in triplicate on IRS Humorous Anecdote Form 1092-376-SNORT.
IRS HUMOR EXAMPLE A: " A lawyer, a doctor and a priest were marooned on a
desert island. So we confiscated their homes."
IRS HUMOR EXAMPLE B: "What do you get when you cross Zsa Zsa Gabor and a
kangaroo?" "I don't know, but let's confiscate it's home."
What a wacky bunch of personnel! But all kidding aside, it's very
important that taxpayers be aware of recent mutations in the tax law. For
example, this year everybody connected with the savings and loan industry gets
a free boat. Also, there are strict new regulations concerning how taxpayers
should cheat. "If a taxpayer wishes to deduct an imaginary business expense,"
states the IRS instruction booklet, "then he or she MUST create a pretend
financial record by clumsily altering a receipt from an actual transaction
such as the rental of the videotape 'Big Nostril Mamas.'"
When preparing your return, you should be sure to avoid common mistakes.
The two most common taxpayer mistakes, states the IRS booklet, are (1)
"failure to include a current address," and (2) "failure to be a large
industry that gives humongous contributions to key tax-law-writing
congresspersons."
All of us, at one time or another, have been guilty of these mistakes, but
I'm sure that this year we'll try to cooperate fully with the IRS, because, as
citizens, we feel a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail. Also, we know
our government cannot serve us unless it gets hold of our money, which it
needs for popular federal programs such as the $421,000 fax machine. I am not
making this program up. I found out about it from alert readers Trish Baez
and Rick Haan, who faxed me an article by Mark Thompson of Knight-Ridder
newspapers concerning a U.S. Air Force contract to buy 173 fax machines from
Litton Industries for $73 million, or about $421,000 per machine. Just the
PAPER for this machine costs $100 a roll.
If you're wondering how come, when ordinary civilian fax machines can be
bought for a few hundred dollars, the Air Force needs one that costs as much
as four suburban homes, then you are a bonehead. Clearly, as any taxpayer can
tell you, the Air Force needs a special kind of fax machine, a COMBAT fax
machine. The article quotes an Air Force spokesperson as making the following
statement about it:
"You can drag this through the mud, drop it off the end of a pickup truck,
run it in a rainstorm, and operate it at 30 below zero."
The spokesperson also said (I still am not making this up): "I was looking
at a picture of a squirrel it produced this morning, and if you wanted to sit
there long enough you could count the hairs on the squirrel."
The questions that probably come to your mind are:
1. The Air Force is using a $421,000 fax machine to send pictures of
squirrels?
2. Are these ENEMY squirrels?
3. Or does the combat fax just start spontaneously generating animal
pictures after you drop it off the end of a pickup truck?
The answers are: None of your business. You're a taxpayer, and your
business is to send in money, and if the Air Force wants a special combat fax
machine, or a whole combat OFFICE with combat staplers and combat potted
plants and combat Muzak systems capable of playing Barry Manilow at 45 degrees
below zero, then it will be your pleasure to pay for them. Because this is
America, and - call me sentimental, but this is how I feel - there is
something extremely appealing about the concept of Barry Manilow at 45 degrees
below zero.
Tax cuts
Originally Posted by Strike For The South
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GOGOGO
GOGOGO WINLAND
WINLAND ALL HAIL TECHNOVIKING!SCHUMACHER!
Then again I am only 17
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