Got taxes?
I don’t think that there is a warm body in this country, or even a not-so-warm body, who could answer this question with a negative response. If it is alive or dead, moves or stands still, somehow our government will find a way to exact what FedSpeakers innocuously term “revenue.” We call ’em taxes.
Don’t get me wrong; I have no issue with the theory of taxation. I have read my Keynes and understand basic economic theory … well, sort of. No, it’s not the theory of taxation that I dispute. But I believe that it should remain just that-a theory. Like quantum theory in particle physics. A theory to be studied, analyzed, argued, dissected, bisected and rejected. The theory is fine; it’s the paying of taxes that I disagree with.
Like me, I’m sure that you (unless you employ the services of a professional preparer) go through an annual ritual in preparation just for the preparation of your taxes. My pre-preparation ritual doesn’t change much. First, I hunt for my wheelbarrow in my garage, which takes about a day. This year I found it behind a precarious pyramid of pop bottles, empty kitty litter buckets,and several six-foot stacks of old issues of Southern Living, Reader’s Digest, and Quilting Quarterly that Joanne finally carried from our bedroom to the garage (there was such a mound of them on our bed that I could barely reach her for a goodnight kiss).
Throw them away? Unheard of. There might be a recipe in the November 2002 Southern Living for Grandma Gertie’s gooseberry strudel that she will need to rip out and stick on the refrigerator door that is already so taped over with recipes, newspaper clippings, grandkids’ art projects, and stick’em notes that it looks like a recycled paper haystack.
I push my finally found wheelbarrow to the kitchen and park it by what I hope is (or was) the kitchen table. I start shoveling the semi-sacred burial mound of accumulated detritus: pizza boxes, dirty paper plates, old newspapers, more dirty paper plates, junk mail, catalogs, and of course some recently arrived magazines that have yet to make their round trip to the bedroom and back to their final resting place in our garage.
Then, on the finally found kitchen table, I carefully arrange the tools I need to manage the mélange of tax forms. Pencils, erasers, notepads, calculator (with extra batteries), and several bottles of Pepto-Bismol. The paper mâche refrigerator, a mere arm’s length behind me, is amply stocked with Miller Lite.
And so it begins-the head scratching and the daunting task of remembering. And that’s just trying to find the state and federal tax forms that were in the junk-mail strata on the kitchen table. After the correct synapses fire, my memory flashes and I retrieve them from one of the five or six green garbage cans that the city allocates to its “Premier Club” customers like me. I scrape the coffee grounds, ketchup and failed gooseberry strudel from them and settle in for an all-nighter.
As the sun rises in the early dawn with the distant reds and oranges on the horizon contrasting nicely with my eyes, I push back from the drool soaked table where I passed out about 4:30. Several empty beer cans litter the floor along with the empty Pepto bottles. Finished at last. I have everything neatly accounted for and summarized on my notepad, right down to the last penny. Joanne emerges from the bedroom, having slept alone all night, unaware that I was not curled up on the other side of Mount Magazine. I hand my detailed tax-accounting sheet to her as she trudges out the door, coffee cup in one hand and Twinkie in the other, so she will know exactly how many months of overtime she will have to work to pay our taxes.
But next year-next year I have it all figured out. This is the last year that I will pay taxes. From now on my tax liability is going to be zero. Nothing. Nada. While I would never presume to encourage any of you to evade taxes, I would certainly encourage you to avoid taxes.
So, here’s my little tax-avoidance plan. (But please do not tell anyone. The first thing you know, the IRS will get wind of it and close the loophole quicker than a cockroach can crawl into a crack when the light clicks on). First, I cleaned out our garage and set up several rows of used union-hall folding chairs that I bought for next to nothing at a garage sale. Then I cobbled together a makeshift table from plywood and several stacks of Quilting Quarterly. I covered it with an old bed sheet and put two candles on it in candlestick holders that the nice garage-sale lady threw in for free with her husband’s used union-hall folding chairs. For ambience, I put a little brass incense burner between them.
Next, I went online, entered my Visa number along my mother’s maiden name (which I don’t understand. Her name was Rita before she was married and Rita after she was married) and a secret PIN (I used 1040) and paid some outfit in the Cayman Islands for their home-study course. After five or six minutes of arduous study, I completed my “final exam” and emailed it back. My framed theology degree (signed by the Rev. Dr. Mr. Jerry) along with my preacher’s license from the Cayman Layman Church arrived a week ago.
As I prepared for my first service next Sunday, Joanne scoffed that my fishing stories did not constitute a sermon. I asked her why not.
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Bill Rausch is a freelance writer from Little Rock. Email him at [email protected].
Editorial, Pages 19 on 05/25/2013