by Dave Barry
Yes, helping people is what this column is all about. That’s why today I’m going to start by answering a question that taxpayers are constantly asking, namely: “When writing a letter to the IRS, should I use hyphens?”
Not if you can help it. I base this advice on a Washington Post news item, sent in by alert reader Bob Pack, concerning an internal memo distributed by the IRS counsel’s finance and management division. This memo, according to the Post, stated that the deputy chief counsel, Marlene Gross, “does not want to receive any memorandums, letters, etc. with hyphenated words.” This was followed by a second memo, which stated that Gross “does not want hyphenated words in letters, memos, unless it is at the end of the sentence.”
The Post item does not say why the deputy chief counsel feels so strongly about hyphens. But it’s quite common for people to develop hostility toward certain punctuation marks. I myself fly into a homicidal rage when I see business names featuring apostrophes on either side of the letter “n,” such as “The Chew ’n’ Swallow Café.” Many historians believe the 1970 U.S. invasion of Cambodia was a direct result of the fact that Richard Nixon received a memo containing a semicolon. The important thing for you, the taxpayer, to remember is that if you write a letter to the IRS finance and management division, and you MUST use a hyphen, you should place it at the end of the sentence, as shown in these two example sentences provided by the American Association of Tax Accountants Wearing Suits:
WRONG: “You fat-heads will never catch me!”
RIGHT: “You’ll never catch me, fat-heads!”
Speaking of finance and management, I have here an Associated Press story, sent in by many alert readers, concerning a congressional audit of the IRS. The key finding, according to the story, was that the IRS “cannot properly keep track of the $1.4 trillion it collects each year.” Isn’t that ironic, taxpayers? The IRS—the very same agency that expects you to maintain detailed records of everything but your toenail clippings—can’t keep track of $1.4 trillion! Although I’m sure there’s a good reason for this. They probably have their hands full at the IRS, what with this hyphen crisis.
But enough about punctuation. Let’s answer some other common taxpayer questions, using the popular Q-and-A format.
Q.
Are you saying that, as a taxpayer, I don’t have to maintain detailed records of my toenail clippings?
A.
Not if they account for 4.7 percent or less of your Adjusted Gross Bodily Debris, which you are of course required to report quarterly on Form 2038-YUK (not available) unless you are a single taxpayer filing jointly or vice versa, whichever comes first.
Q.
Are we EVER going to have a federal tax system that regular people can understand?
A.
Our top political leaders have all voiced strong support for this idea.
Q.
So you’re saying it will never happen?
A.
Right.
Q.
At 9 A.M. today, I made large cash contributions to both major political parties. As of 1:30 this afternoon, the federal government had still not enacted special tax-break legislation just for me. What kind of country is this?
A.
Unfortunately, because of the high demand, the federal government can no longer provide “same-day service,” but if you do not see action by noon tomorrow, you should contact your personal congressperson; or, if you are staying in the Lincoln Bedroom, simply stomp on the floor.
Q.
I have been trying without success since 1962 to get through on the IRS Taxpayer Assistance Hot Line. I understand that the IRS now also has a help site on the Internet.
A.
That is correct. Now, in addition to failing to receive help by phone, taxpayers can fail to receive additional help by trying unsuccessfully to connect with the IRS World Wide Web site at http://www.bunchofletters.gov.
Q.
If I could get through to that Web site, what would I see?
A.
Photographs of Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) naked.
Q.
When you write columns like this, don’t you worry that the IRS is going to get ticked off and audit you with an electron microscope?
A.
No, because the guys and gals at the IRS are a fun bunch, and they know I’m just kidding around. “Ha-ha,” is their reaction, unless they work in the finance and management division, where their reaction, if they know what’s good for them, is “Ha ha.”
How to Handle the IRS
It is time once again for our annual feature “Tax Advice for Humans,” the column that explains our complex federal tax laws to you in simple, everyday terms that have virtually nothing to do with reality. This is the only tax-advice column that has the courage to give you the following written guarantee in writing:
“If, as a result of following the advice in this column, you are for any reason whatsoever confined to a federal prison, we will personally come and live in your house, until your refrigerator is out of beer.”
So let’s get started! Most likely the foremost question in your mind, as you prepare to fill out your federal tax forms, is: “Can I cheat?” A lot of taxpayers are thinking that this is a good year to take advantage of the Internal Revenue Service, because of the way it got hammered in those congressional hearings last September. Remember? One by one, taxpayers went before the Senate Finance Committee and told alarming stories like this:
“I got a letter from the IRS computer stating that I owed taxes back to the year 427 B.C., which seemed like a mistake, plus the letter addressed me as ‘The Dionne Quintuplets,’ so I went down to the IRS office to straighten things out, and the next thing I knew I was being dangled from a helicopter by one leg.”
When the nation heard these stories, everybody was outraged. The IRS formally apologized to the taxpayers and ordered the dismantling of the agency’s primary guillotine.
So a lot of people are thinking that this year, while the IRS is under fire, is a good time to “play fast and loose” with their tax returns, and maybe even get revenge for the years of abuse by yanking the IRS’s chain a little bit. One leading tax-preparation firm, which I will not identify here except by its initials, “H” and “R,” has gone so far as to write taunting remarks in the margins of its clients’ tax returns, such as:
—“Hey Audit Breath! If you don’t believe I spent a 100 percent deductible total of $224,123 on Pez, perhaps you would like me to complain to the Senate Finance Committee?”
—“No I shall NOT enclose Form 10448275-J! I shall use Form 10448275-J for INTIMATE HYGIENE PURPOSES HAHAHAHA!”
This kind of thing is of course a lot of fun, but we are not recommending it. What many people do not realize is that, after the IRS finished publicly apologizing to the taxpayers who testified against it last September, it quietly tracked them down and relieved them of all of their worldly possessions including corneas.
So we are not recommending that you cheat. You should heed the words of IRS commissioner Charles Rossotti, who, in this year’s Letter to Taxpayers, states: “Every citizen owes it to the nation to pay his or her fair share of taxes, unless of course he or she has made a whopping cash contribution to a key congressperson or President Bill ‘Mr. Coffee’ Clinton or Vice President Al ‘I Honestly Thought That They Were Just A Bunch Of Very Wealthy Buddhist Nuns!’ Gore.”
Here are some questions that you are likely to ask in preparing your tax returns this year:
Q.
Did the government change the tax laws again?
A.
Ha ha! That is the stupidest question we have ever heard! Of COURSE the government changed the tax laws! The government had no choice! The government found out that, despite the fact that the U.S. Tax Code is larger than the entire state of Connecticut, there was still one U.S. taxpayer, Norbridge K. Trongle Jr., who was able to correctly prepare his own tax return. The government considered handling this threat to the national sec
urity by sending a B-2 “Stealth” bomber to destroy Mr. Trongle’s house and financial records, but the Air Force vetoed this plan because of the risk that the $2 billion plane would be brought down by Mr. Trongle’s lawn sprinkler. So the House and Senate Joint Tax Mutation Committee swung into action and made a number of significant changes to the Tax Code, which you need to know about.
Q.
What, specifically, are these changes?
A.
Nobody knows.
Q.
How many taxpayers will have their total income-tax payments, for the entire year, used to provide food, housing, transportation, medical care, Secret Service protection, and chew toys for Buddy, the new White House dog?
A.
White House spokeshuman Mike McCurry says that the “best estimate” is currently “around 300 taxpayers,” but notes that this number could rise significantly “if Buddy is implicated in this Whitewater thing.”
Q.
In your opinion, what is the single most common error that I am likely to make, as a taxpayer?
A.
In our opinion, that would be having “light” beer in your refrigerator.
Coffee, Tea, or Dried Wood Chips?
I was getting ready to board an early American Airlines flight out of Miami, and they announced that it was going to be “bistro service.”
“Please pick up your ‘bistro’ meal from the cart as you board the plane,” they told us.
I honestly wasn’t sure what “bistro” meant, but it sounded French, which I thought was a good sign. French food is pretty tasty, except for the snails, which I do not believe the French actually eat. I believe the French sit around their restaurants pretending to eat out of empty snail shells and making French sounds of enjoyment such as “Yumme!” (literally, “Yum!”). But when foreign tourists order this “delicacy,” the waiters bring them shells that still contain actual unretouched snails, which the tourists eat, causing the French people to duck under their tables and laugh until red wine spurts from their nostrils.
But other than that, French food is pretty good. So I had high hopes when, on my way to the plane, I stopped at the cart and picked up a paper sack containing my “bistro” meal. I was hungry, because I had not eaten breakfast, because I had arrived at the airport one hour early so that, in accordance with airline procedures, I could stand around.
When the plane took off, I opened my “bistro” sack. Here are the items it contained: (1) a container of yogurt, (2) a “breakfast bar” made from compressed dried wood chips, and (3) the greenest, coldest, hardest banana I have ever touched in my life. If I’d had a mallet, I could have pounded it straight into a vampire’s heart.
So I didn’t eat the banana. Needless to say I also didn’t eat the yogurt. My guess is, nobody ever eats the yogurt: at the end of the flight, the airline people just collect all the unused yogurts and put them back into “bistro” sacks for the next flight. There are containers of airline yogurt still in circulation that originally crossed the Atlantic with Charles Lindbergh.
I did eat the “breakfast bar,” because if you’re hungry enough, you will eat wood chips. (That’s why beavers do it. There is no way they would gnaw on trees if they ever found out about pizza delivery.)
Anyway, the flight was scheduled to go directly to Houston, so finally, after navigating around the sky for several hours, we landed in: New Orleans. The pilot said there was fog in Houston. No doubt it was manufactured by the Fog Generator, which every modern airport maintains right next to the Banana Freezer.
They didn’t let the passengers off the plane in New Orleans, possibly for fear that we would run away. So we just sat there for an hour or so, rustling our “bistro meal” sacks and listening to our stomachs grumble. Here’s how bad it got: A woman across the aisle from me finally broke down and ate her yogurt. I bet this really messed up the accounting when the airline food personnel got ready to re-sack the yogurt for the next flight (“Hey! There’s one missing!”).
Anyway, we finally took off again and landed in Houston, where we dropped to our knees and gratefully licked crumbs off the terminal floor. So the story ended happily, except for the nagging question that remained stuck in my mind: Why did the airline call it “bistro service”? When I got home, I looked up “bistro.” According to my dictionary, it’s a French word meaning “a small wine shop or restaurant where wine is served.” The image it conjures up is of a cozy little place on a picturesque little street in Paris, with candle-lit tables for two occupied by lovers kissing, drinking wine, enjoying French food, and laughing at snail-eating tourists. Somehow, the airline decided to use this word, of all the words in the world, to describe what was served on my flight.
Why? The answer is: marketing. At some point, American Airlines went to its Marketing Department and said, “We’re going to stop serving real food to people, and we need a good name for it.” Marketing people love this kind of challenge. Their motto is: “When life hands you lemons, lie.” And so they held a brainstorming session, probably at a nice French restaurant, and finally, after a lot of wine, they came up with “bistro service,” which sounds a LOT better, from a marketing standpoint, than “a sack of inedible objects.”
Giving things ridiculous names is a key marketing tactic. That’s why the gambling industry, when it became concerned that people might think it had something to do with gambling, changed its name to the “gaming” industry, as if people go to Las Vegas to play Capture the Flag.
But I think “bistro service” is even better. It may be the best marketing concept I have seen since back in the 1970s, when McDonald’s, which does not wait on your table, does not cook your food to order, and does not clear your table, came up with the slogan “We Do It All For You.”
With this kind of marketing ingenuity, there is no telling how far we can go. Perhaps someday, when we board our airplane, we will each pick up a box of dirt; this will be called “haute cuisine service.” We will take the box without complaining because we are consumers, and our motto is “moo.”
Betting on the Ponies
As a parent, I believe it is my responsibility to help my son develop the skills he will need to become a responsible and productive member of society. So I took him to the horse races.
Specifically I took him to Gulfstream Park, a very nice track in Hallandale, where you can bet on horses and feel comfortable wearing clothing styles dating back upward of 45 years. You remember during the Disco Age, when men wore clingy pants in highly unnatural colors and patterns, so that the wearer looked as though he has been wading naked to his waist in a massive toxic polyester spill, and it dried on his body? Those pants are still the height of style, at the racetrack. We are talking about an older crowd, including guys who, at some point in their betting careers, bet on a Trifecta involving Spartacus.
I enjoy the racetrack crowd. It’s a more sociable group than you might think. I’m generally shy, but when I go to the track, I often find myself having conversations with total strangers. I’ll be standing idly near a bank of TV monitors showing horses racing—possibly at this track; possibly at some other track; possibly in races that took place in 1973—and a man standing next to me will suddenly yank his cigar out of his mouth, turn to me, and say: “Can you believe THAT?”
“No!” I’ll say.
“What the (bad word) is he DOING??” the man will say. “He’s (bad word) CRAZY!!”
“I’ll say!” I’ll say, wondering whom we’re talking about. A horse? A jockey? Newt Gingrich?
“You’re (bad word) RIGHT he’s (bad word) crazy!” the man will say, glad to have encountered somebody else who knows what’s going on. Then he’ll walk away, still talking, leaving behind no clues except a small puddle of cigar drool.
I began the process of educating my son, Rob, by showing him how to pick a horse to bet on. The key is to have a system. I use what is known as a “two-step” system, as follows (you might want to write this down):
I look at a
list of the various horses.
I pick one.
Using this system, I selected a horse named “Yield To Maturity,” which seemed appropriate because it’s something that people are always urging me to do. After I placed the bet, we went into the grandstands to watch the race. Tension mounted as post time drew near, and then the announcement came over the loudspeaker: “They’re off!”
“COME ON, YIELD TO MATURITY!” I shouted.
“Where are the horses?” asked Rob.
“I don’t know,” I had to admit. One of the problems with horse racing is that key parts of the race take place several miles away, so that even if you can find the horses, they look like a herd of stampeding squirrels. I think the sport would be better if the horses stayed directly in front of the grandstand, perhaps on a treadmill.
Eventually the horses showed up, and although I specifically yelled at Yield To Maturity to win, he (or possibly she) did not. What’s worse, he (or possibly she) did not look the least bit upset about losing. In fact none of the horses seemed to take the race seriously. Laughing and pooping, they trotted gaily off the track and headed for the horse locker room to call their brokers. They’re all into conservative mutual funds.
Next I took Rob outside to show him how to “look over” the horses that would be running in the next race.
“What are we looking for?” asked Rob.
