Look Who's Filling Out A 1040 Now
I am not one of these people who believe that you must come out swinging at every stray remark that might strike you the wrong way or whose each conversation is a tit-for-tat exchange seeking advantage.
I will say this though: if you tax me, I don’t see what’s keeping me from taxing you right back.
I fully cede that the U.S. Government needs funds to keep their operations going, but so do we all!
All that I am saying is that since it has taken the first move, I will take the second, and now levy my own taxes upon it.
You have read that correctly. I intend to tax the U.S. Government as a whole. I won’t ask for permission – did they? – but will simply issue a form, similar to that which we all receive, with blanks that first adds up all their revenue, then a piddling little section that allows certain deductions which won’t do them any good whatsoever, and then after a flurry of subtracting Line 18 from Line 12 and the like, presents to them a final number – a dollar amount! – that then must be sent in to me by a certain date.
In an innovative twist, I will leaven the process with some lighthearted humor here and there, which is more than they have ever done.
I go back and forth in my mind as to the nature of this humor – super-sophisticated, or more of the working man variety?
For the former, right under the fine print explaining that I have a claim upon every cent that comes into their coffers, I will relate the tale of the fellow, a famously sophisticated and hard-to-please diner, who strolls into a café in Paris and asks only for a cup of coffee with strict instructions to hold the cream. That should be easy enough, right? But get this: they are out of cream. This puts the staff in a quandary, and they shuffle some other poor waiter out there to ask the guy, “I’m so sorry, sir, we are out of cream. May we hold plain milk for you instead?”
Under the line inquiring after any tax-exempt interest, I will relate the story of the man who sought to write humorous essays but for all his efforts was only ridiculed by his friends and family. He goes ahead and does it anyway, and in a mood of pure defiance says to them, “You’re not laughing now!”
I will lighten up the qualified business deductions section by asking casually what exactly is the correct form of address for the wife of a hippie and then provide the answer for the slower-witted among them: Mississippi.
The rather dry exercise of listing a number from Schedule 3, Line 14, will be a little more entertaining to work through when I ask the reader to picture two giant iron windmills next to one another on the plains of Holland, one of whom asks the other, ‘‘what kind of music do you like?’ and then the other replies, ‘oh, I’m a big metal fan.’
For those who tastes do not run to the droll, I will include knock knock jokes or simply a sketch of a man slipping on a banana peel.
And so on.
You see, unlike the current setup, I have a feel for the poor bastard on the other side of these tax communications. It grinds at me that I am going to wring every excess penny out of them and I don’t see why I can’t cheer them up a little through the entire pillaging process.
Even with the humor relief they will squeal no doubt, but theirs is a classic case of dishing it out without being able to take it, and will be seen that way by any disinterested observer.
If the U.S. Government turns to the audience as a foul-prone cornerback turns to the ref, palms up, shaking his head in disbelief, mouthing ‘what exactly did I do?”, that audience is likely to say, “well, you did tax him first.”
They may look down at the toes of their shoes and scuff them into the dirt a bit first, but my argument will be viewed as foolproof. One outspoken fellow might step forward and say, “If it’s such a bad thing to do, why did you do it to him?”
I don’t know why anyone hasn’t thought of it yet. Taxing the U.S. Government.
Sometimes these things take their own sweet time coming to someone. So it was with this writer who, careful as he is with money, somehow or other finds himself always short of it.
Only after sitting around one day casually thinking about it, does the obvious occurs to him. “Yes, of course, I’ll just tax the U.S. Government. Why didn’t I think of that before?”
I do not seek to be greedy in this manner.
By recollection that effective tax rate for individuals and corporations hovers right around 26%.
To show that I am a reasonable guy I will propose a tax somewhat lower than that to the U.S. Government, despite the fact that this is my first year of levying any tax at all – at all! – and by rights have a lot of years to make up for. But no, that is not my way. I shall settle on 20%
Economists are in accord that the yearly U.S. National Income is in the range of $19.5 trillion dollars.
Simple math tells you that my annual take on the proceeds should range a bit shy of $4 trillion.
To show that I am flexible on this matter, and that I understand that they hadn’t exactly budgeted for this expense, I will say, “tell you what, let’s just say it a flat $3 trillion, and call it even.” I am known for my generosity and this will be cited by many of just another example of it.
I will ask however that going forward the U.S. Government take into account this upcoming and recurring annual expense. If that means that a few secret laboratories and shadowy intelligence operations have to make do with some budget cuts, well, welcome to the club, my friend, welcome to the club. I have been as generous as a man in my position can be.
The proceeds when they come in, carefully marshaled and invested in conservative financial instruments, should see an income of $250 billion a month, enough to get me out of this current hole, and even have a bit left over to enjoy myself a little.
On the off chance that the notion is otherwise about to spit out from one of our finer think tanks or institutions of higher learning, let these few words here stake my claim to the process.
I shall be the first to tax the proceeds of the U.S. Government and will pass a law soon to make it official.
