I have just finished another tax season.  I have been doing tax returns for 45 years.  I have seen a number of changes in the way our Treasury department collects the money that is used to run our country.  I have seen almost every method used by taxpayers to lower their annual tax bill.  I have seen the occasional taxpayer who includes the medical bills of his mistress in his medical deductions.  I remember a number of years ago that a man submitted a great number of medical bills from the Vet he used for his dog.  He was kinda in a state of disbelief that such expense could not be taken as a deduction.  He loved the dog more than a couple of his children or so I was told.  I have always been a bit perplexed with people who you would never expect to live on the edge who will tell you that they want you to use as many deductions as possible even if they are in a gray area.  “I don’t want to pay them a dime”.  They don’t seem to remember that many of our services are paid for thru these collected taxes.  I once had a very wealthy client who told me one day that he didn’t care how much tax he had to pay because it always meant that he had made enough to owe such an amount.  If he didn’t have enough left then that was his fault.  I think along those same lines.  The government doesn’t make up information with which to tax you but simply taxes you based on how much you actually made and reported.

For people in my line of work one of the most frequent statements that a taxpayer uses is ” a friend of mine told me I could take a deduction for___________.”  I always give such a question the same answer.  Were you drinking when your financial adviser told you of this deduction?  Does your financial adviser prepare tax returns or does that person just dispense advise.?  That usually takes care of the problem.

A couple of weeks ago a young man asked me what the best thing was about being a CPA.  I told him the long hours you have to work over the entire period of your career.  He looked like I had slapped him with a wet sock.  I don’t think that was the answer he was looking for.  I followed up with the fact that it was a clean profession: you could wear a vest if you looked good in one and your hands were normally clean unless you had to change your calculator ribbon that day. Damn I hate that little chore.  I also told him it was fairly safe unless you spilled coffee into your calculator and was electrocuted. As I left he mentioned something about maybe being an insurance salesman.

I would have made a very good mountain man.  I think I would have been just a cracker jack of a forest ranger.  However, i stumbled into the accounting profession, found out it was something I was good at and I have made a career out of looking at other people’s money.  People who know me well, know that I have seen more than one humorous situation.  Accountants are not all that dull when you get them away from their desk.  Your clients can provide you with info that will allow you to write several books.  I am going to do just that one of these days.

Chuy the Calculator