Before I go out to mail my tax payments (I’m not only a good citizen, I’m a cheerful one since I’m glad I made enough to pay taxes, glad I have the money with which to pay those taxes and because I regard taxes as the fee I pay for civilization), I must pass this on, from Lowering the Bar.
It’s hilarious, more so because it’s all true: A Few Tax Arguments Not to Make – Lowering the Bar.
Kevin Underhill begins by stating something I didn’t know: the IRS apparently gets so many wacky arguments against paying taxes they publish a document addressing the situation:
Hey, your taxes are due this week—or are they?
Yes, they are, that was a figure of speech and not a suggestion that you should treat federal taxes as optional. That is one of the many arguments you should not bother making on Wednesday.
Turns out that the IRS has a publication that lists and summarizes a number of arguments not to make, entitled “The Truth About Frivolous Tax Arguments.” Part of that truth is that there are lots of frivolous tax arguments—the PDF is over 65 pages long and addresses 44 (sometimes overlapping) “contentions” that will be rejected if you assert them. Here are just a few.
And you’ll definitely want to link in there, just in case you were planning to argue…