Upon taxes

Writing Prompt::  It’s April 13 and you haven't even started to work on your 2009 tax forms (in the US, tax forms/payments are due April 15) and you are no longer eligible to use the EZ form. What do you do? Write the STORY or POEM, first or third person.


As I pondered, weak and weary, what this evening’s chore should be
taxes loomed like poignant gravestones in a dark cemetery.
Turning aside thoughts of pleasure I began the misery.

The rules are printed on pulp paper, something I had not considered
before tonight’s blithe adventure.  Why had I so long dithered
over such a simple task?  T’was thicker than I remembered.

I had my forms, and all the numbers that I ought to ever need.
Even though they’d been deducted, taxes did my paycheck bleed
until eating was a privilege, and my pay just met my need.

What is this?  I scanned the rule book, unable to find the page
that contained the same instructions that before had been so sage.
What could have happened to it...

It would seem that the rules have changed!

Find the worksheet on page sixteen, enter all my numbers there,
hope they won’t be too excessive.  Must I all my income share
with officials who spend it on things in ways I wouldn’t dare?

Tweak the numbers, do the math.  How did the total get that large?
Where is my calculator hiding?  Why do I have the sudden urge
to chuck the whole thing in the garbage as I sing a mournful dirge?

Dear God!  That form they sent me, supposedly one that is EZ,
the worksheet says I cannot use it. What has happened to poor me?
Now I need to find the long form...

Doggone it, the rules have been changed!

Where can I get form A, the long one? How many lines does it contain?
Do I have everything I might need?  This is now a royal pain!
It seemed that I was all but finished.  Now I must begin again.

The instructions ask for forms unknown by simple folks like you and me.
Do I have the information needed to be found tax free?
Now I’m sweating every number that if find required. Oh, gee!

New exceptions, new conditions: how much money did I earn?
Can I even take these credits?  I don’t have money to burn.
Now it appears that I owe taxes on money I didn’t earn.

Damn it, the rules have been changed!

Someone ought to be tarred and feathered!


34 lines