[192] in Humor
HUMOR: Dave - Coming up short
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Mon Apr 11 10:25:51 1994
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 94 10:21:47 -0400
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Cc:
Coming Up Short
by Dave Barry
> Today I am pleased to present the results of the Amateur
>Tax Tips contest, in which I asked readers to submit their tax-
>preparation tips on postal cards and send them in for a chance to
>win a valuable used pair of men's briefs signed by humor writer
>Roy Blount Jr. Needless to say, this prize stirred up plenty of
>excitement. Many of the entries mentioned it by name ("DO NOT
>SEND ME THE UNDERWEAR").
> I pored over the postcards for hours, and I have
>concluded, via a complex and sophisticated statistical analysis,
>that a lot of them feature photographs of semi-naked women. These
>are postcards from seaside resort areas. Most of them show women
>standing on a beach, wearing swimsuits no larger than Sweet 'n Low
>packets and smiling brightly to express the theme: "Greetings
>From Ocean Squid Isle! Here Are Our Bosoms!" Of course if you
>actually GO to a beach resort, this is not what you will generally
>see. What you will generally see is hairy-backed men the size of
>Madison, Wis. I think this represents postcard fraud, and I think
>the authorities should look into it.
> But getting back to the contest: In poring over the
>postcards, I also briefly glanced at the sides that had writing on
>them, and I found some excellent tax tips that you will definitely
>want to try out this year if you have not already done your taxes
>and have no more sense than a musk melon. So get a pencil and
>paper ready, because here come the:
>
> RUNNER-UP AMATEUR TAX TIPS
>
> "The IRS encourages taxpayers to round off numbers. For
>example, my income is $34,500, so I round this off to $30,000."
>(John Soennichsen-Cheney)
> "Don't report any income from Jeff Gillooly." (Steve
>Peters)
> "You will never get audited if you write possibly insane
>statements all over the margins of your tax return like, 'The
>C.I.A. is monitoring my shoes and YOU KNOW IT!!!'" (John Averill)
> "I list a different occupation each year that accurately
>reflects the theme in my life for the year. Real occupations that
>I've listed include 'wage slave,' 'alchemist' and 'saboteur.'"
>(M. Dennis Moore)
> "If you are dead as of midnight, April 15, you may
>request an extension to file." (George Ellerman Jr.)
> "Use that standard $20,000 deduction for church
>donations. WHAT TO SAY IF AUDITED: 'Look, did you see that
>Popemobile? Well I PAID FOR IT.'" (Darrell VanDyke)
> "When you file electronically, you can send in your
>payment by repeatedly running a dollar bill through your fax
>machine." (Harold Tapper)
> "DO NOT CHEAT ON YOUR TAX RETURNS. I cheated last year
>and was immediately given a high-ranking congressional office. It
>really scared me." (Phil Harvey)
> "MARRY YOUR CAR. Assuming your car produces no income and
>you file jointly, you can save up to 50 percent of your tax bill.
>The tricky part is finding the right minister. Before he would
>perform the ceremony, my minister asked me, 'Son, did you get your
>car in trouble? Because I won't do weddings like that.'" (Jon
>Kelly)
> "Being poor has always worked for me." (S. Dailey)
>
> I think we can agree that these are all excellent tax
>tips and in an ordinary year, any one of them would be good
>enough to win used underwear signed by Roy Blount Jr. But this is
>not an ordinary year. This is a year when a truly wondrous Amateur
>Tax Tip has been suggested BY THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE ITSELF.
> Here's what happened: In 1992, the IRS got audited, for
>the first time ever, by the General Accounting Office. The results
>were just released, and guess what, taxpayers? It turns out that
>the IRS has been doing a TERRIBLE job of record-keeping. The
>Associated Press states: "The IRS system for administering its
>own money was so bad that auditors were unable even to review 64
>percent of the IRS's $6.7 billion budget in 1992." In auditing
>the IRS's cash accounts, the GAO also found "unresolved
>differences of $63 million."
> Now get this. In response, IRS Chief Financial Officer
>Morgan Kinghorn explained that -- I am not making these quotes up
>-- the IRS had been using an "old system" of accounting that
>"just was simply not auditable and not designed to be
>auditable." But now, he said, the IRS has a new system.
> "My guess," Kinghorn said, "is we'll have a clean
>opinion next year."
> Isn't that MARVELOUS, taxpayers? Doesn't that just make
>you want to hurl your tax forms and your cardboard box full of
>12,837 unintelligible tax-related pieces of paper into the air
>with joy? Finally, we have an Official IRS Excuse! From now on, if
>you have ANY problem with the IRS, and the amount in question is
>$63 million or less, simply state that your accounting system was
>"not designed to be auditable," but that you have a new system,
>and that your "guess" is that everything will be OK next year.
>I'm sure this will be FINE with the IRS.
> So that is our winning tax tip, and I am going to launder
>the grand prize and mail it to Mr. Kinghorn. I'm sure he'll accept
>it with grace and good humor. Please bring me food in prison. Also
>bring some for Roy Blount Jr.
