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Quote of the Day: A Role Model for the IRS
Zacchaeus: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold. (Luke 19, ESV)
The text of the New Testament does not tell us that Zacchaeus stopped being a tax collector for the Romans. He just becomes a more honest one, a penitent one. “Render unto Caesar.”
I don’t know how many people in the IRS need to follow his example by repenting of theft and making restitution.
But there’s one other thing Zacchaeus does that is certainly worthy of emulation for a great many in the IRS: He admits his mistakes.
Please admit your mistakes, IRS. You mailed Mrs. Augustine and me thousands of dollars in advance child tax credits we weren’t eligible to receive (and which we have returned as voided checks). But you still haven’t figured out that those same children–fully qualified for the regular child tax credit, which we got in 2018 and 2020–were also with us in 2019, and that we, therefore, do not owe you $9,000 in back taxes for 2019.
And for any of you who are actually breaking the law or lying, I won’t say “Go to Hell” because I have a much better idea: Imitate Zacchaeus. Not the early, corrupt version. Imitate Zacchaeus 2.0–Zacchaeus the penitent sinner. Go to Jesus Christ, repent of your sins, and then go back to the office the next day and make it right.
Published in Group Writing
I hate the IRS. Don’t tell them I said that
I didn’t quite understand that. Would you like to file electronically, or make a payment?
As my tax law prof would also remind us, the tax laws are not the fault of the IRS. Mistakes in tax collection, yes, but the IRS gets too much blame that belongs to legislators (and let’s be honest, lobbyists).
Get bent, Taxman!
Yes, the IRS is terrible, but the whole problem begins with foolish legislation.
Ugh, autocorrect! The “daily” = fault
It’s kinda ridiculous how we’re supposed to respect her principled decision to only pay the proportion of her taxes that didn’t go to funding the military.
Imagine Hollywood making a movie where a conservative only pays the proportion of her taxes that didn’t go to funding stuff the federal government isn’t allowed to do under the Tenth Amendment.
Well, it’s good that we can say we tried everything. Please let us know if this works.
I’m pretty sure the IRS knows everybody hates them . . .
If the IRS gets to decide who is eligible for non-profit status based on their politics, then I feel free to blame anything and everything on the IRS.
It’s central planning. Pure stupidity. It should be a flat tax with one deduction for comrades procreating more tax slaves.
The government is running out of money because it produces too many “non-public” goods and it can’t keep any actuarial system in balance.
Another reason to wipe it all out.
People are so OK with this crap. They are also OK with the fact that the Federal Reserve can’t guess the right interest rate. Madness.
I had an accounting TA that loved making jokes about how the tax code was bunch of Soviet stupidity.
I never thought about Tax Day and Election Day being so far apart. That’s pretty interesting. I’m going to have to do some research on that.
Wesley Snipes is a hero.
duh
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3264290-to-promote-fairness-scrap-the-tax-code/
I’m sure I will get audited for liking your comment.
What did the notice from the IRS say? Besides a dollar amount owed, did it give instructions for disputing this? Have you responded in accordance with those instructions? What happened? When was it supposed to happen?
I can’t even remember the original notice, but it wasn’t hard to figure out their mistake once I got set up online and was able to see the transcripts for different years.
With some difficulty, I managed to get instructions from them on the phone. We sent them a simple letter explaining the simple problem.
It should take them 5 minutes to confirm what the problem is by looking at our transcripts.
So, naturally, they’ve sent us letters four times now explaining that they need another sixty days to figure it out.
To be fair, I don’t know how long it should take them to fix the problem. But probably fewer than 240 days.
They need to wipe out every single complication except the ones that are going to massively blow up markets, like the housing interest deduction.
There is absolutely zero value added by this Soviet stupidity. Anybody that thinks otherwise is a moron.