Amateur tax tips Sat, 19 Feb 94 16:08 Today I am announcing the first-ever Amateur Tax Tips Contest, featuring an exciting prize, as well as an opportunity for some lucky winners to serve lengthy terms in federal prison. The purpose of the Amateur Tax Tips Contest is to provide normal people with practical, real-life answers to their tax questions, as opposed to the complex and vague "advice" we so often see in columns written by the kind of goody-two-shoes money geeks who actually save their receipts and record their mileage and file their tax returns on Jan. 2 and finished their science- fair projects early. I'll give you an example of what I mean. QUESTION: "How much can I deduct for a business office in my home?" COMPLEX, VAGUE MONEY-GEEK ANSWER: "Calculate the size of the office as a percentage of the total living area, then use this figure to compute the pro rata costs of utilities, mortgage interest, taxes and insurance." PRACTICAL, DOWN-TO-EARTH ANSWER: "$6,532.87" That's what we taxpayers want: concrete information. We don't want: "Total your amortized capital depreciation as specified in Schedule C, section 873, subsection VII, verses xii and xiii." We want: "Put down that you lost $3,832.24 operating a perch farm." Perhaps you think I am suggesting something dangerous here. Perhaps you do not believe that the Internal Revenue Service (Motto: "We'11 Answer The Taxpayer Assistance Hotline When You Pry The Coffee Cup From Our Cold, Dead Fingers") would allow you to take anything so ridiculous as a perch-farm deduction. Listen: You can deduct anything. People have deducted used underwear. And when I say "people," I of course mean "Bill Clinton." According to news reports, in past years President Clinton deducted as much as $2 per pair for used underwear that he donated to the Salvation Army, which in turn gave the underwear to some needy individual, who in turn threw it into a Dumpster. No, really, I'm sure this needy individual wore Mr. Clinton's former underwear in a profoundly grateful manner. And I applaud Mr. Clinton's generosity. Although I am troubled somewhat by the idea of any guy voluntarily giving up his underwear. Whoever says that guys are unwilling to make lifetime commitments clearly has not examined the intimate bond that can develop between a guy and his briefs. If a guy's wife secretly throws a veteran pair of his underwear away, the guy will sense that something is wrong, and he'll whistle in a distinctive manner, and his underwear will leap out of the garbage and bound toward him like a loyal retriever. That's how close the guy-underwear bond is. Call me heartless, but I've never donated my used underwear to anybody. The irony is that I happen to own a set of briefs that are probably quite valuable, inasmuch as they are signed, in ink, by a well-known humor writer. (There's a perfectly innocent explanation, but he's embarrassed about it, so as a courtesy to him I'm not going to reveal his name here.) (Instead, I'll reveal it here: Roy Blount Jr.) I estimate that, for tax- deduction purposes, these briefs are worth $2,473.02. Notice that I use an exact-sounding number here. That is one of the most important Amateur Tax Tips: ALWAYS USE AN EXACT-SOUNDING NUMBER WHEN YOU ARE MAKING SOMETHING UP. The Internal Revenue Service goes over tax returns with dogs that are specially trained to bark angrily when they find round numbers. If you HAVE to use a round number for some bizarre reason, such as that it is actually true, you should put a little note in the margin that says "This number is actually true." ALWAYS "DOUBLE-CHECK" ALL FIGURES. I say this in light of a 1993 Washington Post article concerning a Centreville, Md., man who received a bill from the IRS for -- I am not making this up -- $68 billion. A lot of careless taxpayers would have simply paid this bill, but this man had the presence of mind to question it, and as a result he will be eligible for parole in just 224 years. No, seriously, he got it straightened out. The Post article doesn't say exactly how; my guess is that he will be allowed to make two easy payments of $34 billion. This just goes to show that ordinary taxpayers CAN "beat the system." And you can help them, by sending in YOUR tip to our Amateur Tax Tips Contest. Send in anything that you think might be helpful to other taxpayers, including a photograph of the IRS commissioner naked. The only restriction is that whatever you send MUST BE ON A POSTAL CARD. Send your card to: Amateur Tax Tips, c/o Judi Smith, Miami Herald, Miami, Fla. 33132. I'll report the best tips just before April 15. The people who suggested them will receive a handsome mention of their names in this column, as well as a chance to be audited for life. The person who suggests the best tip will receive, at tremendous personal tax-deductible sacrifice to me, a historic literary object that has been valued, in print, at $2,473.02. I may even wash them first. *** Coming up short Sat, 9 Apr 94 17:08 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. From rgaff@napslinc Mon Mar 20 05:45:52 1995 Subject: Just in time for tax season (fwd) Return-Path: rgaff%napslinc@[198.135.13.7] Tax Preparation Is Really A Cinch When You're Dead By Dave Barry Copied from Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph Sunday, March 12, 1995 Income-tax-filing time: For Person A, it's a nightmare; yet for Person B, it's no big deal. What's the difference? Simple: Person B died in 1993. This is the kind of sound tax planning that can prevent numerous headaches down the road. Unfortunately, those of you who foolishly elected to continue living are going to have to file tax returns this year. That is the bad news. The good news is that the IRS is working hard to make its tax forms more "user- friendly." For example, I have here the old and new versions of Form 5213, sent to me by alert tax-payer Katie Tibbits. The two forms are identical except for the titles. The old version is titled: Election To Postpone Determination As To Whether The Presumption That An Activity Is Engaged In For Profit Applies. What a bunch of gobbledygook! Fortunately, the folks who work at today's IRS (motto: "We're Human Beings Just Like You, Except We Breathe Via Gills") no longer tolerate this kind of confusing prose. They have thoughtfully revised Form 5213, so that it's now titled: Election To Postpone Determination As To Whether The Presumption Applies That An Activity Is Engaged In For Profit. That certainly clears THAT up! I think all of us taxpayers should express our gratitude by filing Form 5213 this year as many times as is humanly possible. Tibbits also sent me Form 8328, which was named by the IRS' state-of- the-art Random Noun Generator: It's called "Carryforward Election Of Unused Private Activity Bond Volume Cap." The instructions do not give any clear indication as to what this form is for, except that it has something to do with docks and wharves. My advice to you is, if you have had anything what- soever to do with a dock or wharf in 1994, including simply walking on one, you should flee to the Amazon rain forest immediately, because trust me, you do not want to mess with Form 8328. My eyeballs are bleeding just from looking at it. Most taxpayers, however, are mainly concerned with Form 1040. The average time required to complete and file this form is about 11 hours, according to an IRS study of average taxpayers on the Planet Zeembo. You will probably need more like a month, not counting the time required to forge receipts. To help you with this annual chore, I've prepared the following: ANSWERS TO COMMON TAXPAYER QUESTIONS Q. Who is the current IRS commissioner, and is he or she a wacky dude or dudette? A. Her name is Margaret Milner Richardson, and she surely is. Check out her "Dear Taxpayer" letter on page 3 of the form 1040 instruction package, wherein she states that the IRS has been recognized as "a leader among government agencies in customer service." Q. What is that comparable to? A. That is comparable to stating that "cement is a leader among construction materials for use as a dessert topping." Q. Does Margaret make any other comical statements in her letter? A. Yes. She states: "I want you to know that the 'S' in IRS represents a commitment to serve you." Q. What does the "R" represent? A. It represents "a tiny room with a hard chair where we grill randomly selected taxpayers until they break down and tell us about thier wharves." Q. How will the O.J. Simpson case affect my 1994 tax returns? A. You're going to have to chip in a little extra to help offset the estimated $147 million business deduction that the defense team is claiming for suits. Q. Have you noticed that, all of a sudden, manufacturers are advertis- ing baking soda as a Miracle Ingredient in just about every product you buy, including tires? A. You are required to keep detailed records of this. Q. Did several alert readers send you a story from the Jan. 20 issue of the Easton, Pa. Express-Times concerning a fascinating highway accident? A. Yes. The story begins: "A truck carrying 40,000 pounds of frozen cow lungs slated to become dog food in France wrecked on Route 31 early Thursday." There's also a photograph, captioned: "A worker kicks some of the 20 tons of frozen cow lungs that spilled from this truck." Q. Are you making this up? A. No. Q. Why did the worker kick some of the frozen cow lungs? A. Perhaps he did not have time to kick them all. Q. Is there a specific tax form for this situation? A. Of course. It is Form 592038-MOO. You are required to file this form if, during the 1994 tax year, you, or anyone you know, for any reason, owned a dog. * * * In following the tax advice outlined above, please bear two things in mind: 1. I am NOT a Certified Public Accountant. I am the U.S. Treasury secretary. 2. Our tax laws are constantly changing as our elected representatives seek new ways to ensure that whatever tax advice we receive is incorrect. Even as you read these words, Congress is considering a bill that would require every 15th word in the tax code to rhyme with "uvula." So if you have ANY doubt about a tax decision, pick up the phone and call IRS Commissioner Richardson directly. She won't mind. After all, the "I" in IRS stands for "I have a terrific sense of humor." I hope.