Dear Mr. President,
I know your first few weeks as Commander In Chief haven't been a cupcake eating convention. Your first appetizer from the buffet of national ridiculousness has been an economy nosediving like U.S. Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson. Thing is, we don't exactly have Capt. Chesley Sullenberger (personally, I prefer to call him "Sully") in the cockpit to ease us into a safe landing. This might be because Sully's booked for five straight nights on Larry King Live. But the more probable explanation is that for the last five years our financial institutions have been run by people with job titles like Executive Director, Devious Financial Mathematics. That said, before it's all said and done, I have no doubt that Sully and Larry King will be blood brothers, or maybe even conjoined twins. Somewhere in the wilds of the Internet, I bet there’s a picture of Larry climbing onto the wing of the floating Flight 1549 to get the first interviews with Sully and his crew.
Of course there’s also the array of wars across the globe that aren't
going our way. It reminds me of a teenager at summer camp getting in way over
his head by simultaneously playing three or four games of Risk against his
fellow campers. What's that? Did I just compare Our Country ‘Tis Of Thee to a
lanky, brace-faced 14-year-old boy? Uh, yeah. Sorry. Bad analogy.
Anyhow, your most recent kerfuffle stems from the tax issues some of the wealthy, influential, and powerful people
appointed to your administration have run into. Basically, we've all learned
that the best way to become wealthy, influential, and powerful in the first
place is to simply not pay a chunk of taxes each year. Who knew?! You'd
think that Suze Orman would have passed along this tip at some point.
Given this new culture of tax relief, and given that we're
approaching the heart of tax season, now seems an appropriate time to get
ahead of the curve and highlight a few tax "misunderstandings" of my
own. I’m being totally upfront about these unfortunate circumstances, and to go
the extra mile, I’m going to throw in a dash of genuine sorrow and a dribble or
two of relatively lukewarm regret. Again, I’ll underscore and double-bold the
unfortunate nature of these sad (not bad!) fiduciary oversights. Really, the word
I keep coming back to is “unfortunate.” Unfortunate. There, that should do it.
Without belaboring the point, here’s an executive summary of some mild tax
errors that I’m totally not responsible for, but that you, as the de facto
Boss of The IRS, may want to briefly scan before tossing them into the garbage
and wiping them from your memory like a blank flash drive that you just picked
off the shelf at Staples.
1996 - Not only did I fail to pay taxes on tips I made as a waiter at Freddy's
Fried Fish Joint...I actually wouldn’t even classify them as take home pay since the funds never reached that particular destination. Instead, I fed my tips directly
into the Golden Tee and Pop A Shot in the back.
1997 – Some people fail to pay taxes on a housekeeper. And some people look at
their yearly wages and wonder if they actually spent the year working as one
and somehow didn’t realize it.
1999 – Hey, Prince told us to party like it was 1999! So I did. I like to think
that I put the “social” back into social security that year. Instead of
contributing to an underfunded government albatross that will go kaput decades
before I reach 65, I bought 78 rounds of lemon drop shots.
2001 – Instead of mailing in a tax return, I just photocopied my middle finger
and sent that along for IRS review.
2002 – You know that murky provision about deducting gambling losses that
everyone talks about, but nobody really understands? Yeah, I unilaterally took
a gamble and enacted it.
2003 – The IRS was understandably perplexed by the ballooning roster of
dependents who kept showing up on my 1040 and trust me, I’m still trying to
sort it out myself. Think about how confusing it is for me! NBA ballers and
John and Kate Plus 8 can relate.
2004 – I felt like it was more appropriate to file as an Independent
Contractor, since most of my at-work activity consisted of hiding from boss in
my cube and fiddling around on YouTube. Talk about solitary confinement.
2007 – I noticed that the blind get a pretty decent tax break. And based on the
amount of time I spent snoozing on my couch in front of the TV in 2007, I
assure you that I was gazing into thick blackness more often than not.
There
you have it Mr. President. I cannot tell a lie. While this process of admitting
my sins of omission hasn’t been easy, I’m thankful for the opportunity to
serve my country by listing every cheap shortcut and dubious itemized deduction
in the book. We’re all Americans. United we stand. Hope for hope. Our way of
life. Let freedom ring. And while you’re at it….would you mind looking the
other way?
Posted by: |