Perils of Paying Taxes

PAYINg TAXES

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a bad fall.
He lost two month's work and piled up bills,
and when tax time came, wanted to run for the hills.
But with still-weak body he took his receipts,
and consulted the experts for their mathematical feats.
Still, even with a team of tax-knowledgable guys,
they couldn't come up with enough to itemize.

Independently, the letters i, r and s are harmless little members of our everyday alphabet. But capitalize them and put them together and they have the potential to make even Stone Cold Steve Austin's knees quake with fear.

There are two certainties on this earth: death and taxes. To some, I'm sure the two words are synonomous.

There's a second poster of Uncle Sam that should be plastered on walls everywhere. In this one he's not pointing his index finger at you, demanding "I want you!" Instead he's got his palm outstretched, demanding, "I want every last penny I can possibly squeeze from you, and I want by April 15."

Nothing is meant to be more long-lasting than your marriage vows, with its condition, "Till death do we part." The IRS, however, reaches its long arms out to you even after you've died. They may make someone else file your return and fork over from your estate whatever you owed them when there was still blood running through your veins. The "death tax" has been in the spotlight recently but the jury's still out on the effect of the outcome.

I understand that from 1818 until 1861 there were no federal taxes. What a Maalox/Rolaids-free time that must have been!

For several years we've done our taxes ourselves. It's worse than waiting for the lottery numbers to appear as you add, stubract, check the tables and anxiously await your fate. If the final line says we owe, I triple check everything. If the outcome is "refund," I send it out immediately. I figure it's always accurate when the government owes us.

If you ask any kid what they want to be when they grow up, I seriously doubt if any reply, "An IRS agent." So then, how does one get led down the lonely path to feardom? Are there taletell signs that your child is on his/her way to working for them? Should you first become suspicious when they surround themselves with the color green? Should you seek counselling if they thumb their nose up at Disney World and instead want to visit the Department of Printing and Engraving for the summer vacation? Is there a special diet that can detour such a child in another direction? "Eat your rhubarb and applesauce, dear, or you may grow up to be an IRS agent!"

There's much talk about tax relief. Tax breaks are cool. For a few minutes you feel like you're actually getting something. However, those few minutes are fleeting, because deep within your "learned-from-experience" memories you know that, along with your tax windfall, higher prices will be blowing in as well, leaving you just about breaking even again.

Yep, the tax man cometh. It's too bad he doesn't goeth!