
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, February 15, 1941.
“Say, listen,” said Jimmie Frise anxiously over the telephone, “could you run over here for a few minutes?”
“Sure,” I responded. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, it’s this income tax return,” grumbled Jimmie. “I can’t make head or tail of it.”
“Well, you’re past the end of January, my boy,” I informed him heartily. “So why worry? Might as well be hung for a goat as a sheep1. You’re going to be fined any way, so why let it spoil a fine winter’s night like this? Let’s take a walk over to the slides and see the kids tobogganing.”
“Listen,” said Jim earnestly. “Come on over, will you? I won’t be happy now until I get this thing off my mind. Gee, I wish I had never looked at the thing.”
“We all have to look at it sooner or later,” I said comfortingly.
“Haven’t you done yours yet?” inquired Jim.
“No,” I admitted. “I was all set to attend to it right after the New Year. But by that time everybody was talking about the taxes in such gloomy terms that I decided to put off the bad news for a few days.”
“You’re in for a shock,” came Jim’s voice over the telephone dully.
“But by the middle of January,” I explained, “the talk had grown so bad I simply couldn’t bring myself to the task. I mean – with all the war news and everything, I just couldn’t bring myself to it.”
“Oh, boy,” said Jim hollowly. “You’re going to get a swell bump.”
“Then along about the last week in January,” I continued apologetically, “I started planning to do it first thing in the morning. But when I got to the office the sun was shining and everything was so bright and brisk I would put it off until the afternoon.”
“Oh, me,” sighed Jim. “That’s exactly what I did.”
“And when the afternoon came,” I concluded, “I was too tired to face it.”
“Yes, but where do you stand now?” demanded Jimmie.
“Well, sir,” I informed him, “just about the last day of January, when I had given up all hope of escape, didn’t I learn that if you didn’t want to pay your taxes in instalments you had until April 30 just as usual.”
“But good grief,” cried Jim, “that’s the lump sum. That’ll kill you.”
“So long as I don’t know about it,” I explained, “I won’t suffer. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.”
“A fine philosophy,” snorted Jim. “My dear sir, do you realize that if you were paying it in instalments those instalments are each almost as big as the whole amount of taxes you paid last year?”
“Oh, nonsense,” I laughed.
“I’m telling you,” shouted Jim. “I’ve been sitting here ever since supper working at mine. And the way I work it out, every instalment is pretty near as big as the whole amount I paid last year.”
Up to Item 53 N
“You’ve got yourself mixed up, somewhere, Jimmie,” I warned him. “No government would do that to us.”
“Oho, won’t they!” cried Jim. “Just wait till you take a look at this form. Net income. Taxable income, Dominion. Net taxable income, Dominion. General tax payable, Dominion. National Defence Tax, see item 32.”
“Item 32?” said I.
“Thirty-two,” cried Jim. “It goes up to item 53 N.”
“Fifty-three N, eh?” I said, a little disturbed.
“Listen,” said Jim, rattling a paper. “Quote: 53 A. Insert item 17 E increased if necessary because of item 37 (2).”
“M’hm,” I said.
“Come on over,” begged Jim. “You’d better.”
“Yeh. I’d better,” I said numbly.
Trapped by the Income Tax, after all these rosy weeks of stalling it off. As I walked around the corner and down the block to Jim’s, I reflected that I am not a meany or a skinflint. I don’t pinch my money. I don’t go around trying to buy things wholesale through my friends. I don’t hope to save a lot of money to leave my children so they’ll be ruined. I don’t do any of the things I suspect my friends of doing. Yet, somehow, I feel I have not a healthy attitude towards the Income Tax. Why do I try, even in my sleep, even in my widest-awake hours, to evade the thought of it? I am all for the war. I was an old soldier in the last one. I’ve been over three times to see this one. Surely I am a patriot. Yet…
Jimmie was waiting in the vestibule to let me in.
When he led me into the living-room I saw the family had been banished and the table was littered with large sheets of paper, including at least five sets of income tax forms.
“There was a pile of them,” explained Jim, “so I took plenty. I had a hunch I would need them.”
“Well, well,” I said comfortingly, rubbing my hands; “don’t let it frighten you, Jim. These forms have been worked out for the benefit of the whole population of Canada, the majority of whom are simple, common folk like ourselves. It stands to reason, therefore, that they are as simple as they can possibly be made.”
“Heh, heh, heh,” laughed Jim, mirthlessly, as we sat down.
“It has a formidable look,” I continued, picking up one of the forms and inspecting it. “But let us go on the assumption, let us start with the perfectly logical assumption, that even a child could work this out.”
“Heh, heh, heh,” hacked Jim bitterly.
“Now,” I said, “I see you have entered your name correctly. In block letters, Surname first. Yes. And then the Christian names, with James underlined. Quite correct.”
“Don’t waste time,” cut in Jim. “I’ve filled in all those places. Dependent children and all. Now come to the first real item. Item 17 A. Total income, see item 29.”
So we turned to item 29, page 2.
For the Smart Guys
“Item 29,” I pointed. “TOTAL INCOME. Well, that’s simple. That simply means, 17 A, Total Income, means TOTAL INCOME. See? In item 29 they put it in capitals, so you would understand it was TOTAL. That’s just to help you, see?”
“I see,” said Jim wearily, running his hand through his hair.
“So you put down your TOTAL income first,” I explained briskly, “and come to item 17 B. Deductions, see item 45.”
“Oh, sure,” sneered Jim.
“Okay,” I said reassuringly. “Here’s item 45. Sum of the Above Deductions.”
“What above deductions?” inquired Jim sweetly. “Above what?”
“Well, let’s look,” I heartened him. “Here’s one that should cheer you up. Interest Paid On Borrowed Money.”
“Read it,” commanded Jim hollowly.
“Exclusive,” I read, “of carrying charges in items No. 24 and No. 25…”
“No, no,” pleaded Jim. “Don’t turn to them yet. You have so far turned only three times already to try and get the very first question answered. Don’t you get dizzy, too, for Pete’s sake, or we are sunk. Try to keep your balance. Try to keep your sanity. Just read a little note in black type there, under where you were reading…”
“Here it is,” I read. “Note: Do not include interest on mortgages on residence of taxpayer or on moneys borrowed for personal and living expenses.”
“Well,” said Jim tragically.
“That is kind of mean,” I confessed.
“What other kind of money would I pay interest on?” demanded Jim. “The only kind of interest I could deduct, they won’t allow.”
“That item is for business men,” I explained.
“You bet it is for business men,” charged Jim loudly. “The whole blame thing is for business men. But if it is for business men, why do they keep poor simple people like us chasing back and forth all over that crazy form, as if we were all chartered accountants? I bet 80 per cent. of the people who have to pay income tax are not business people and don’t know one end of an item 28 C from the other.”
“Well, hold on,” I pleaded. “Wait till we see, here.”
It was, at this moment, about 9.25 p.m. I need not delay you with an itemized account of our evening. I took my coat off at 10.30 p.m. We sent over to the drug store for cold ginger ale at 11. The family came in and said hello to us from the hall about 11.30 p.m. and went straight to bed.
We figured and added and subtracted. We worked on Jim’s returns for about three hours and then turned to mine, just to see if it would work out a little simpler. We changed both our incomes into round numbers to see if that would help any. At 1 a.m. Jimmie went and hunted until he found his son’s Public School Arithmetic and we took a recess to explore away back into the almost forgotten realms of fractions and how to divide 7 ¾ by 461 8-9.
“Look, Jimmie,” I cried. “Lowest Common Denominator. Do you remember?”
“Aw,” said Jim, “let’s get back to the job.” He went to the closet and got out the card table. We shifted everything off the living-room table – forms, scribbling paper, books and all – and started afresh. It was 2.20 a.m.
“What,” demanded Jim grimly, “is the reason for all this hanky-panky on these income tax forms? Do you know the answer?”
“Well,” I submitted, “I suppose it is because it just grew, year after year, with additions and changes.”
“Like an old dead tree,” said Jim bitterly, “with fungus growing on it, and other fungi growing on the fungus. No. I’ll tell you the reason. If this income tax was simple the smart guys couldn’t pull any smart stuff. This income tax form is designed for the benefit of the smart guys of this world.”
“Oh, Jimmie,” I protested, “you’re tired. It’s getting on towards morning.”
“No, sir,” stated Jim emphatically. “This world is designed for the benefit and advantage of the smart guys. Nothing shows that to be true more dramatically than these income tax forms. I am willing to bet you one instalment of my taxes that an ordinary accountant could reduce this whole thing to the simplest arithmetic. So that it would be just and equal for all. Amount of tax. Amount of deductions. Then a plain percentage of it all. That is what they get anyway. So why don’t they simplify it?”
“This income tax form is the result of slow growth,” I explained.
“Don’t ever believe it,” retorted Jimmie. “It is complicated only so as to allow loopholes for the wise guys. Mark my words.”
“Don’t be cynical, Jim,” I pleaded. “We’re both tired. If it could be made simpler, why wouldn’t they make it so?”
“Do the wise guys want anything simple?” cried Jim. “Aren’t the ten commandments enough? No. The lawyers have built up a Tower of Babel2 so they can act as guides and collect the fees. It’s the same with taxes. Somebody must be profiting by all this bunk.”
“Jim, you don’t understand that democracy is a slow growth,” I protested, “like a strong tree, ring by ring.”
We were checked by the sound of heavy footsteps out in the hall.
“Hello,” said a strange, deep voice.
“Who’s that!” cried Jim, leaping up.
“It’s the milkman,” said the voice, coming up the hall. Your side door was open and I was just wondering if everything was all right.”
“Come in,” said Jim, “and thanks very much. No, we’re just working on our income tax.”
“Oh, them,” laughed the milkman, appearing at the living-room door. “I’ve seen quite a lot of people doing them during my rounds this past couple of weeks.”
“It’s an awful job,” sighed Jim, ruffling all the piles of papers.
“Oh, it’s not so bad when you get on to it,” comforted the milkman.
“Do you know anything about it?” I inquired stiffly.
“Yes, indeed,” said the milkman. “I’ve helped a dozen or more folks with them. It’s really a question of knowing what to…”
“Come in, come in,” cried Jim softly, taking the milkman’s arm. He set down his wire basket of milk.
“If you want a real problem,” he said, as he sat down, “you take my milk accounts for a week.”
He took the form Jim had been working on and ran an expert finger down the sheet. He spotted errors immediately.
“Now,” he said cheerfully, “let’s take a fresh form.”
Filling out the spaces rapidly, he mumbled and buzzed and muttered.
“How do you know which Items to skip?” I demanded, laying down the Arithmetic in which I had been revelling in the Prime Factor.
“Just by experience,” explained the milkman. “You learn by experience which…”
“Yes,” I said sternly, “but why do simple people like us have to wander bewildered by the hour in all that maze of detail which applies only to business men, rich men, bond and stock holders, partners, receivers of royalties, annuities, premiums on exchange…?”
“I guess they leave it in,” said the milkman, “to make us happy. To make us realize how confused and complicated are the lives of business men. It does us good, I imagine, to get a glimpse of what it means to be well off.”
“Hm,” said I.
“Hm,” said Jim.
And in about four minutes he did Jim’s. And in three minutes he did mine.
And he got a figure far less than either Jimmie or I had got.
We don’t know if they are right or not.
But we’ve sent ’em in.
Editor’s Notes:
- This phrase means This means that one might just as well be punished for a big misdeed as a small one. This expression alludes to the old punishment for stealing sheep, which was hanging no matter what the age or size of the animal. ↩︎
- The Tower of Babel is a parable in the Book of Genesis meant to explain the existence of different languages and cultures. ↩︎