Taxpayer Itemizes a Few of His Concerns
Dear IRS,
Three cheers for another successful year of revenue gathering.
The thought occurs, however, that I don’t really know how you spend my money. In fact, I don’t know very much about you at all -- especially, how you come up with the line items on my tax forms. Would you mind if I pick your brain for a bit? Not wanting you to spend a lot of time on it, I’ll try to use everyday language so as not to confuse you.
1. Did any portion of my contribution go to Botswana? Was it larger than 0.000004%? If no, skip Questions 2-4 and proceed to Question 5. If yes, indicate the precise amount.
2. What will the Botswanans do with the money?
3. Where exactly is Botswana?
4. Is Botswana an ally of the U.S.?
5. How much of my withholding was spent on subsidizing dairy farmers? Whatever the figure is, multiply it by 0.00025. That is the amount I’d actually like to give to dairy farmers.
6. Was any of my withholding donated to the Transgender Awareness Fund? If so, multiply the figure by 2 and transfer the amount to the Westminster School District.
7. If the amount in (5) is larger than (1), enter zero. If the amount in (5) is smaller, subtract that total from the figure in (1), multiply by 32% (0.32) and add the result to the amount in (6).
8. What is the amount of my withheld tax that went to fighting fire ants in Orange County, Calif.? If zero, proceed to No. 10 below.
9. If there was an amount withheld, divide the amount by the estimated number of fire ants in Orange County, Calif., and subtract it from the amount in (5).
10. How much did I contribute to National Public Radio? If the amount is greater than zero, please ask them to start broadcasting baseball games. If the amount is zero, how about Chinese opera?
11. Is the percentage of my withheld tax that went to astrological research greater than 0.00015? If no, proceed to Question 12. If yes, answer the following:
A. What are the prospects for happiness of a female Capricorn and a gender-conflicted Gemini? If the amount in (11) is greater than zero, add the number of Capricorns and Geminis in the country and divide it by the number of Leos. Multiply the result by 0.75 and, in 1963 dollars, add the amount to $12.95.
B. Do Botswanans believe in astrology? Just curious.
12. If you could be any animal in the world, what would it be?
13. What percentage of my taxes went to helping people or institutions that really need it? If the figure is greater than 50%, color me surprised.
14. Has money been set aside for steroids education? If yes, take the amount my taxes supported and multiply it by the combined batting averages of the 1953 National and American League batting champs.
15. Pick a number between 56,200 and 93,495. Multiply it by 19% (0.19) and subtract it from, oh let’s say, 11,240. Take the difference, if greater than zero, and divide it by 7.5 -- but not before adding it to the sum of the amounts in Questions 1 and 10 above. Take the amount and apply it to scholarships for inner-city youths if the numbers of them in any given city exceed 0.005% of the total youth population of that city. If it does not, proceed to Question 14.
14. Who do you think will win the World Series this year?
This completes my questions. I hope you found them straightforward and concise.
Do you swear that all your answers are accurate? If so, sign below and include the name and daytime phone number of your attorney, in the event you have perjured yourself.
Looking forward to hearing from you. I remain,
A Concerned Taxpayer
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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.