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It is on my third reading of the 1040 instructions that I decide that I need a cigarette. Too bad, I don't have one. It is also too bad that if my wife catches me thinking about smoking that I will have worse things than the taxman to worry about. While the government believes that they own a certain percentage of my income, the wife believes that she owns my entire body and soul.

Actually I think she is wrong. I suspect that someplace in this stack of tax instructions is a paragraph that reads "Besides the income that you are reporting on Schedule C, a hundred percent of the wealth you have earned for your comfort in the after life is taxable if you are a sinner bound for the unpleasant down under. If your soul is bound for purgatory, fifty percent of your present cache is owed; furthermore an additional twenty-five percent must be forwarded to the IRS upon your escape to heaven. Saints owe a hundred percent on their heavenly stockpile. In addition, all earnings that you receive in the afterlife are subject to a thirty percent income tax." It might be paranoia, but I am sure that the IRS wants their cut of my afterlife also. And if my heirs sell my dead corpse (oh, I was too brilliant to die; what a loss of genius, the world will weep), the IRS will be there to collect their percentage.

No one moans the death of a taxman. Oh, maybe their wives and children-do taxmen get married? Probably not. I suspect that they (taxmen) reproduce by fission. Much like lawyers do. But we will never know for sure; no scientist is mad enough to capture some to study them.

Of course, I realize that I will never know if I filled out my tax forms correctly. It is a person's right to only pay the amount that they actually owe. Too bad that there are three hundred and sixty five bible sized volumes of tax law to go though to figure out if you have found all the deductions that you can claim. And while you are looking for these tax breaks, one thing is sure to happen. Actually two things. One, you will discover that you owe money on things that you didn't know were taxable ("What do you mean college scholarships are taxable if the money is used to pay for living expenses?!). Two, while you are wasting time researching the tax law, they are busy changing it; next year, you have to start learning tax law all over again.

I would hire someone to do my taxes for me; but after I get done paying the IRS, I won't have money to pay them or my landlord. Nor can I afford that cigarette. I wonder if they will accept a check postdated after my death?

Learn more about this author, Morgan Drake Eckstein.
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