Deep in the Heart of Taxes
by Karen Williams - Oviedo Voice - March 17, 2005
It's tax time, and moans, groans, even screams pierce the air as people tussle with paperwork. This need not happen. With at attitude adjustment and a bottle or two of buffered aspirin, we can all make short, cheerful work of tax prep. Let's follow these E-Z guidelines:
1) View the government as a person. Don't think in terms of sending your hard-earned tax money to a vast, multi-tentacled, wasteful, ungrateful government blob. Think, instead, of paying tax money to a person-your kindly Uncle Sam, of course. Feel good about supporting your uncle in his old age, perhaps enabling him to get a fresh new wardrobe of striped pants, spiffy top hats, and a little Grecian Formula for the old goatee.
2) Make it fun. Involve the entire family in an afternoon of record-gathering. Offer prizes to the person or pet who drags the most shoeboxes crammed with blurry receipts from under the bed. Offer more prizes to those who help you sort the receipts into piles: "Deductible," "Non-Deductible," and "Omigosh, Did I Really Waste Money on THAT?"
3) Get Help. Using a handy software program that requires only a few all-nighters to comprehend, type in your income and expense information and then polish off a bag of Doritos while the program get its jollies by computing your tax. Or skip the software and employ the help of a tax preparer, but you may have to share the Doritos.
4) Send. Add name and date and send your completed tax forms, along with a brief note, to the IRS. Mention that you, unlike most Americans, deeply admire their work. Throw in some cute puns, such as "Bet you have a good FIGURE," or "What's your (plus or minus) sign?" Decorate your tax envelope with hearts or happy face stickers, knowing that you're about to brighten someone's day.
5) Be prepared. Be ready, in the back of your mind, for a tax audit. Thus you won't become rattled or feel inclined to skip the country if the inevitable occurs. Approach the audit process with confidence, proud of your record-keeping, expensive software, and the fact you were way-too-scared to lie.
6) Above all, bear in mind: The officials who process our taxes and audit our records are people just like you and me. They follow "Desperate Housewives," they obsess over the Michael Jackson trial, and they're frustrated, neurotic, and repressed.
7) Come to think of it, be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
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Copyright 2005, Karen Williams
