Here’s an interesting tidbit. The Internal Revenue Service, like Hamlet, is deeply studying whether or not they should do something. Specifically? They’re pondering if they should add a question onto our 2027 tax forms, inquiring if we are U.S. citizens.
I know. I know. What do you mean by, “we?”
In their tireless mission, the IRS is attempting to streamline government and make our interaction with it a more serene and positive experience. You know. Like root canals. Personally? I think dentists should start calling them, “root beer canals.” Strikes me as more soothing and reassuring. Like the entire federal tax code, which weighs more than Antarctica, adding to the IRS forms is like trying to do a valve job to a car while the engine’s running. The IRS sheepishly made a circle on the federal throw rug. Literally, here’s the query the IRS wants to add: “Check this box if you are a non-U.S. citizen or have dual citizenship.”
Then, who knows, maybe, add another box underneath with the disclaimer: “Cross our hearts and hope to die, stick a pastrami sandwich in our eye, trust us, we probably won’t send your income tax return directly over to ICE, and the CIA, along with your children’s routes to elementary school. On a scale of 1-to-10, with ‘1’ being highly unlikely and ‘10’ being, ‘My relatives came over on the Mayflower and never left’ and ‘5’ being a shrug and disinterested, ‘meh …’ please rate your confidence in you being a … wait. Look what you’ve done. You’ve run out of room on this form! Damn you!! You’re now going to have to fill out IRS Form 1040-Zpi-r-squared91321£§ªXXXfl€$$ to finish the question Please excuse us for not including a period at the end of the previous sentence and walk, do not drive, to your furthest post office to pick up Form No. 1040-Brassiere-Size 44-Double-D-/a-woob-a-woob/a-woob-woob-woob-woob-woob-gnyuck-gnyuck.”
Actually, I like the idea of going after the young children of illegal aliens to get to the parents. Little kids are still cute and easy to catch. We could round up all 4.6 billion illegal tykes, dehydrate them and march them across the border. Pick a border. Any border. March the kids across back to Switzerland, where they belong. Their mothers enjoy a closer bond with their children than your regular American yoga pants soccer moms. Weeping and lamenting, the foreign mommies will follow their toddlers across the border. The husbands, missing their wives (stifling a chuckle here) will go, “Oh, cripes! Not like I don’t already have enough to do today!!” and, reluctantly, follow their better halves back to their countries of origin. There. Solved illegal immigration in a blink.
No offense to the five-out-of-six people in America who now work for the IRS, but I’m not sure I have much confidence in our tax pals adding one simple question to our April 15 paperwork.
Full disclosure here? I’ve been diagnosed as being Clinically Twisted. If I were designing next year’s innocent little excise query, I’d write it up like this:
“UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH & PERJURY, ANSWER YES OR NO ONLY: ‘Do you still beat your wife, have you ever knowingly passed wind in your sleep while ordering a Code Red, and, are you — DON’T LOOK AT HIM, LOOK AT US!!!! — still a U.S. citizen!?!?!?”
Because I’d be getting paid by the government, I’d want to stretch out my tax form design consulting job. Taking a few months, I’d design a second box, just for Democrats: “Do you IDENTIFY as a U.S. Citizen, or, would you like to consider adding: “MY PERSONAL PRONOUN IS U.S. CITIZEN,” all upper case, but there’s no need to yell as raising your voice is a micro-aggression, Hitler-face fascist.”
I mean, hey. It’s the tax code. We have opened a Kong Island-sized door here. We could include yet another box. This field would inquire of the person about to risk 20 years of hard labor if he/she/it would enjoy: “Instead of checking the box, would you prefer to do an interpretive dance about your feelings about checking the box, or, have a non-English-speaking loved one, perhaps not as gifted in tribal fusion ballet as you, perform said interpretive dance, a cappella?”
Those who know me will testify. I am an awful person.
If I’m designing a box on any federal tax form, I’m adding a final, 14,006-word disclaimer/warning about all the bad things that will happen to you if you draw outside the boundaries of the box.
What are these bad things? Let’s keep it simple. If you color outside the little box, you’ll have to run through a gauntlet of angry, unionized George Soros employees, who will throw rocks and squirrel presents at you as you, begging for mercy, stumble by. One incentive to filling in forms properly is if you don’t, you’ll get an injection of hormone-blocking drugs that will turn you into a drooling vegan. I know. Drooling Vegan. Good band name AND oxymoron. Personally? I like a hot branding iron to the forehead, leaving you with the forever I.D. tag: “STINKY FOREIGNER.”
Yes. I know. Another good band name.
And then?
Make the new, IRS “Is Youse A Citizen?” box sub-atomic particle sized. Say, 0.000000000019 of a square inch. Above would be the threat that said microscopic square must be filled in, using sweeping, panoramic strokes, with a really blunt black Sharpie. If the ink bleeds outside the lines, you, like Sisyphus, must start all over with your 2027 tax forms
Of course, I’d urge you to visit your friendly IRS website (which is probably down) to download another form, requesting a another form, to add a period after the phrase from the previous paragraph, “… 2027 tax forms”
Period.
“Naked Came the Novelist,” John Boston’s long-awaited sequel to “Naked Came the Sasquatch,” is on sale at JohnBoston-Books.com. (Both should be movies.) Also available are other fine books, including his two-part “SCV Monsters” series. A lifelong SCV resident with 119 major writing awards and nearly 12,000 columns, Boston is Earth history’s most prolific humorist and satirist.
