The Tax Man Cometh, Even After the Bomb

An unsigned letter encloses a clipping from the San Jose Mercury News that is at once demoralizing and reassuring. It is credited to the Mercury News staff and wire reports and is datelined Washington.

Its essence is that, in the event of a nuclear attack on America, we can expect at least two phenomena to survive--cockroaches and the Internal Revenue Service.

I had already heard it said that cockroaches, if anything, might survive a nuclear war. They are as ancient as civilization; they have survived man’s resolute and ingenious attempts at eradication; they thrive today, despite the lethal effect of modern pesticides.

I have an idea too that moles and gophers may survive, since they live in underground tunnels in which they might escape the effects of blast and radiation until it was safe to surface. But a world populated only by cockroaches, moles and gophers is not one most of us would want to inhabit.

Remember back in the early 1960s when we underwent the nuclear bomb shelter craze? People were actually building bomb shelters in their back yards, with the naive notion that in a nuclear attack these holes in the ground, stocked with food, water, aspirin and gin, would see them through. We even argued whether people in San Bernardino County, say, should share their shelters with people fleeing from Los Angeles County, or hold them off with shotguns; but fortunately the craze died out before any of these confrontations ever occurred.

People stopped building bomb shelters, I suspect, because they finally realized that if their cities were leveled by atomic bombs, there would be little to come up for. We decided that nuclear war was too horrible to contemplate.

Now that the Cold War is over, and we seem to have survived its hazards, we learn that certain members of our species, to wit Internal Revenue Service agents, are not only expected to survive a nuclear attack but to go on doing their job.

The Mercury News said that the IRS expects to be back in business “within 30 days.” The story said, “That’s the bad news.” The good news is that residents of neighborhoods that are really devastated may get a break on delinquent taxes.

The thinking here is that the government will be in such desperate need of money that the IRS will concentrate on taxes that can be expected to produce more of it.

Instructions for agents working in bombed-out areas are spelled out in a new section of the Internal Revenue Manual, the tax agency’s bible. The two new pages were added on orders of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“In the event of a national emergency (especially resulting from a nuclear attack) the primary function of the service is to support the secretary of the Treasury. This support at a minimum will consist of analyzing and reporting upon emergency tax legislation, prescribing regulations and forms, and issuing rulings and technical information of an emergency nature.”

So much for our hopes that after a nuclear attack we might never see another income tax form.

The section on delinquent accounts reads: “On the premise that the collection of delinquent accounts would be most adversely affected, and in many cases would be impossible in a disaster area, the service will concentrate on the collection of current taxes.”

I’m not sure I like the moral implications of that stand. Those who pay their taxes on time would be the first to be harassed, while those who do not would be excused. The moral there is that if you expect a nuclear attack, don’t pay your taxes.

On the other hand, the prospect of tax agents surviving does give us some hope. Imagine that you are sitting on your kitchen floor, having miraculously survived a nuclear attack. You see two cockroaches, mating, and you know that all life has not perished.

And then, suddenly, you see standing in the rubble a smiling young man in a pinstripe suit with a yellow necktie, polished shoes and a chic briefcase. He says, “Would you be Jack C. Smith?”

Not really knowing, you mumble, “I guess so.”

“Ho ho!” he says. “I’m your Internal Revenue Agent!”

“But I paid my taxes,” you protest.

He says, “You’re just the man we’re looking for.”

You’d know then that life goes on.

Wouldn’t it make you cry?