Hell To Pay

Hope n' Change isn't commenting on news today because we're working on our taxes and it's critically important that we make sure all of our paperwork is in order. And by paperwork, we're referring to our airline tickets and passports.

We're kidding (mostly), although a run for the border almost seems preferable to the unending hell of trying to figure out Kafka-esque IRS forms which seem to have been poorly translated from their original Martian. Oh sure, we use Turbotax software - but so did former Obama financial bag-man Timothy Geithner, and his taxes were off by tens of thousands of dollars (in his own favor). Not that anyone cared.

And although the Feds don't seem to be putting much effort into finding blatant tax cheats like Al Sharpton (hint: he was at the freaking White House yesterday) who owes 3.7 million dollars, we suspect that we would receive somewhat less leniency owing to the fact that our entire business model is based on calling the president an anti-American douche-noodle.

And don't even start us on Lois Lerner, or the fact that the IRS has been spending buttloads of money on AR-15's and boxcars of ammunition while utterly failing to upgrade their 1960's-era computer technology. Or the fact that if you call the IRS for help, you'll probably get a wrong answer. Or at least you would if they were answering their helpline phones - but they're not, owing to budget shortfalls quite possibly caused by the fact that they've misplaced billions of dollars and (oops!) forgot to keep any records of where the money went. Even IRS Commissioner John Koskinen refers to IRS customer service as "abysmal."

So, now that we've doubled down on asking for an audit, we really want to make sure we've got everything in order when we file our return. Which currently means we need to go hunting for a previously unknown form that the self-employed need to fill out and send to the government to show how much we paid ourselves this year. They will then compare this form to the amount we report on our actual taxes, just to see if we're too stupid to report the same number in both places.

The form itself is available online in PDF format, as is the special instruction that more or less says "if you print this form for the love of all that's holy, don't use it." The IRS then directs you to download information document "part O" so you can look up the fines you'll have to pay if you do use their downloadable form. And sadly, we're not making this up.

Still, all of the frustration is worth it in the end if it means we're contributing our "fair share" to a government that will spend our hard-earned money carefully, wisely, and frugally.

No doubt on about 30 seconds of the Obama family's next luxury vacation.