Tax time is here, and chances are that you, like millions of other Americans, are busily going over your financial records, adding up columns of figures, trying to determine whether you have enough money left to pay for a house call by Dr. Jack Kevorkian.
Ha ha! That was just a little suicide humor to put you in a lighthearted frame of mind for preparing your tax return. You're going to want to be extra careful this year, especially after the big scandal that erupted concerning Zoe Baird, one of the estimated 430 women President Clinton attempted to nominate for attorney general before he found somebody who had never knowingly had children.
As you recall, Baird was forced to remove herself from consideration when it was discovered that she had failed to pay the required federal tax on the two little dots she puts over the "o" in "Zoe."
I'm kidding again. The government does not tax accent marks. Yet. What got Baird in trouble was that she failed to follow the correct federal procedure regarding household help. Let me explain this procedure using a simple example: Suppose you have a teen-aged neighbor who baby-sits for your kids every Saturday night. If you pay this baby-sitter more than $50 per fiscal quarter -- which works out to about $3.85 per fiscal week -- federal law requires that you file an SS-4 with the IRS to get an employer identification number; then, every quarter, you must file IRS Form 942, making sure to deduct 7.65 percent of the baby-sitter's wages, and adding 7.65 percent yourself to cover Social Security and Medicare taxes. Then, at the end of the year, you must give your baby sitter a W-2 form and send a copy to the Social Security Administration.
Outrageous, you say? A ludicrous example of an insanely burdensome and complex tax system raging out of control? Well, perhaps it will surprise you to learn that, according to a recent nationwide investigation, these regulations are being compiled with at a level approaching 93 PERCENT by Mr. and Mrs. L. Fieldmont Vanderwacker, of Ames, Iowa. Everybody else, including you, just pays the baby sitter and forgets about it.
This means that you are a Tax Law Violator, and, therefore, cannot be in the Cabinet. Pretty soon NOBODY will be clean enough to hold a high government position; we'll have to recruit our federal officials from Brazilian rain forest tribes that have never heard of money. ("WASHINGTON -- In a development Thursday that observers believe could indicate a deep rift in the Cabinet, the Secretary of Transportation ate the Secretary of Defense").
Another problem with violating the tax laws is that you might get audited. Fortunately, this is not as bad as it sounds. I know this because I recently viewed an educational videotape provided by the IRS. This tape, which was recommended to me by alert reader Sam Kent, of Boulder, Colo., is titled, "Hey ... We're Being Audited!"
(I love that title. I think it should serve as the model for other educational government videotapes, like "Hey ... We're Intervening In Bosnia!" or "Hey ... They're Storing Nuclear Waste In Our Neighborhood!")
"Hey ... We're Being Audited" looks sort of like a TV sitcom: It features a Typical Suburban Family -- a perky Mom with perfect blond hair, a genial tie-wearing Dad with the IQ of lettuce, and two child actors playing a brother and sister who have clearly been drugged because they never hit each other.
Everything is going fine for these people until -- WUH-oh -- they get an audit notice from the IRS. They're very nervous. Fortunately at this point, in comes the wise old grandpa, Fred. Fred has been audited before and seems to have actually ENJOYED it. He says things like: "The unique thing about our nation's tax system is that it's based on trust." (SURE it is! That's why we're being audited!) Fred also says: "You know, those IRS folks, they're just people."
As proof of this, the scene switches to the IRS office where we meet two IRS auditors who LOOK like humans, but talk like Martians. Here is some of their dialogue:
FIRST AUDITOR: You know what impresses me? The emphasis on confidentiality!
SECOND AUDITOR: (chuckling, as though this is a hilarious remark): Oh yes, we're always stressing the importance of preserving the taxpayer's privacy!
Anyway, comes the big moment, and Mom and Dad go in to the IRS office. They're doing OK until -- WUH-oh -- the auditor discovers that they used THE WRONG BASIS FOR DETERMINING THE DEDUCTION ON MOM'S HOME OFFICE. Those silly geese! In a wonderful scene, an IRS supervisor hauls out the Tax Code and shows it to Mom and Dad, and they -- this is a triumph of acting skill -- pretend that they can understand it.
So it turns out that Mom and Dad owe some money, but not too much.
"THAT wasn't so bad!" says Dad. "They never found out about our cocaine smuggling!"
No, I made that last line up. The tape ends with Grandpa Fred saying: "Our taxes help to maintain our country and the quality of life we enjoy as Americans today." They also pay for such vital government programs as producing "Hey ... We're Being Audited!" If you'd like to see it, call the IRS Taxpayer Education Office, and they'll send it to you, free. Be sure to return it on time, or they get your house.
