Deduct You.

It’s tax time kids. As everyone knows, once a year this arbitrary and capricious society we’ve created takes a financial reckoning of its citizens, and thereafter determines if they’ve been naughty or nice. For some, it’s a time of misery and woe, and for others…it’s still a time of misery and woe. And for the random and sadistic few, and only the random and sadistic, mind you, tax season is a time of celebration, a time to bask in the all encompassing glory and spectacle of the Internal Revenue Code, the code that owns you like a kid owns a puppy dog.

I, much to my parent’s disappointment, am starting to fall among the random and the sadists. The astute of you may have noticed that the icon next to my name on this glorious blog is actually the icon of the IRS. To those of you who caught this, I hereby give you an electronic high-five. You are on the path of becoming a “tax-jock,” a title much revered in paper-pushing circles everywhere. To those of you who didn’t, it’s okay. You probably have more important things to be concerned with, like where’s the closest bathroom…

My conversion to sadism and randomness began last fall, after being lured unwittingly into the individual and estate and gift tax classes at law school. At first, as my professors spouted forth the gelatinous dogma of the code (a.k.a., the Internal Revenue Code for you humans), I was frightened, scared, confused, and yes, I must admit, I soiled myself…but only a little bit. But, as time wore on, I became enlightened. I was mystified at the wonder of it all, at how the little worker bees of the United States MUST abide by its precepts, and at how knowledge of the code gave one power. Yes, my friends, power beyond belief…one code to rule them all, one code to find them, one code to bring them all and in the darkness bind them… Rrraaahhh ha ha ha!!! I will crush you under my iron boot you puny gnats!!!!! Sorry. Got carried away.

I knew I couldn’t turn from the dark path when I prepared this year’s tax return, filed two-and-a-half months ahead of schedule. My wife sensed something was wrong when I gathered up our W-2s, 1099-divs, 1099-ints, and 1098-ts like a ravenous dog. Her eyes were filled with fright as I giddily calculated our adjusted gross income, retirement savings contribution credit, earned income credit, and additional child tax credit. To my surprise, she’s sticking around, afraid, perhaps, that I might try to deduct her again if she tried to escape…

In sum, my friends, it’s all over for me; I’m lost to a world of randomness and sadism. But to each of you I wish a very merry tax season. May your miscellaneous itemized deductions, as indicated on schedule A of form 1040, be greater than your standard deduction, and may your personal and dependent exemptions continue to be plentiful and great.