more tax humor for busy season.
collected, curated and refined by robert e. mckenzie. enjoy!
- “they can’t collect legal taxes from illegal money.”
– al capone: before he was convicted of tax evasion.
- sixty-four percent of women attorneys think that tax lawyers make undesirable dates.
– daniel dolan
- “the best things in life are tax-free.”
– joseph bonkowski
- “if your biggest tax deduction was bail money, you might be a redneck.”
– jeff foxworthy
- “yes: here’s to the founding fathers – slave-owning british citizens who didn’t want to pay taxes…”
– david mazzucchelli
- to err is human, but this you should learn. do not be human on your tax return.
– tony anton
- the best way to teach your children about taxes is to eat 30% of their ice cream.
– bill murray
- “abracadabra, thus we learn the more you create, the less you earn. the less you earn, the more you’re given, the less you lead, the more you’re driven, the more destroyed, the more they feed, the more you pay, the more they need, the more you earn, the less you keep, and now i lay me down to sleep. i pray the lord my soul to take, if the tax-collector hasn’t got it before i wake.”
– ogden nash
- instead of taking the pants off the taxpayer it might be better to take the vest off the vested interests.
- they say politics makes strange bedfellows, but it’s the taxpayer who has the nightmare.
- a washington tax lawyer goes to texas to give a speech. he arrives at his hotel late and tired having undergone a strip search at washington national after his pen set off the metal detector. after check-in at the hotel, he goes down to the hotel bar for a well-deserved nightcap. the tax lawyer ordered a shot of whiskey, and the bartender brought him a 12 oz. glass of whiskey. he inquired: what is this? the bartender responded: everything is big in texas. he drank the whiskey, and since he was still not relaxed, he ordered a beer. the bartender brought a 64 oz. glass of beer. once again the tax lawyer asked: what is this? the bartender again responded: everything is big in texas. the lawyer drank it. now by this time the tax lawyer really needed to go to a bathroom so he asked for directions from the bartender. he was told go down the hall and turn left at the third door. unfortunately, the tax lawyer was a little tipsy from the shot and a beer and he turned right at the third door and fell into the hotel swimming pool. he immediately shouted don’t flush it!!!
and, in case you missed them (and you haven’t had enough yet), here’s more…
- it’s not that we can’t fill out a simple tax return. the problem is that in so many cases, a simple tax return simply doesn’t exist.
– anderson independent mail, 1-25-12
- love, sex, and the i.r.s are three things that will always be with us.
– dave howell, the morning call, 3-30-15
- it’s always sunny the day after tax season, regardless of the weather.
– kurt schneider, cpa 4-20-17
- “an income tax is the price which the government charges for the privilege of having taxable income.”
– secretary of the treasury andrew mellon
- turbotax is the worst video game ever.
- the american taxpayers wouldn’t object to free transportation for certain government officials if they’d go where we wish they would.
- a cpa goes into a pet shop to buy a parrot. the shopkeeper shows him three identical parrots on a perch and says, “the parrot on the left costs $500.” “why does that parrot cost so much?”, asks the cpa. “well”, replies the owner, “it knows how to do complex audits.” “how much does the middle parrot cost?” asks the cpa. “that one costs $1,000 because it can do everything the first one can do plus it knows how to prepare financial forecasts.” the startled cpa asks about the third parrot and is told it costs $4,000. that begs the question, what can it do? to which the owner replies, “to be honest, i have never seen him do a darn thing, but the other two call him senior partner.”
- “three things are certain in life. death and taxes are two of them. the third is tax fraud.”
– matt pearce, la times, april 19, 2016
- “i think nobody knows more about taxes than i do, maybe in the history of the world. nobody knows more about taxes.”
– donald trump during 2016 campaign
- “anonymous just hacked trump’s tax returns. unfortunately, like trump’s hands, the numbers are tiny and impossible to make out.”
– michael r. burch
- “it’s the envelope no taxpayer wants to open: an irs audit notice. what should you do if one arrives? curl into the fetal position? run? freak out?”
– usaa, april 21, 2016
- “consult an appropriate tax lawyer if you’re thinking about legally setting up offshore financial accounts. and consult a lawyer if you’ve already done it the other way … because the feds may be ringing your doorbell very soon.”
– john devie, u.s. news world report, april 19, 2016
- “the invention of the teenager was a mistake. once you identify a period of life in which people get to stay out late but don’t have to pay taxes – naturally, no one wants to live any other way.”
– judith martin
- two accountants are in a bank when armed robbers burst in. while several of the robbers take the money from the tellers, others line the customers up against a wall and proceed to take their wallets, watches and other valuables. in the midst of the chaos, accountant no. 1 jams something in accountant no. 2’s hand. without looking down, accountant no. 2 whispers, “what is this?” to which accountant no. 1 replies, “it’s that $50 i owe you.”
- q: how many irs agents does it take to screw in a light bulb?
a: only one, but the light bulb really gets screwed.
– from garrison keillor’s ‘pretty good joke book’
- irs motto: “we’re not happy until you’re not happy!”
- “ignore them and they’ll go away” is great advice for some of life’s annoyances. unfortunately, it doesn’t apply to taxes.
– martha c. white, time.com april 17, 2012.
- a white business envelope with your name in the cellophane window and the return address of the irs. attention from the internal revenue service can mean only one thing: they want your money.
– jessica steinberg, the times of israel, 5-6-12
- over the years and out of literally thousands of tax protestors who have been criminally prosecuted, a very small handful have won acquittals in their criminal trials, by convincing the jury that they were too stupid to understand that they had to pay taxes.
– financial & tax fraud education associates, inc
- cutting its (irs) budget is like killing the goose that lays golden eggs — or at least putting her in a smaller pen and feeding her less.
– selena maranjian, the motley fool 2-1-12
- here’s a funny story relayed by internal revenue service call center agents: taxpayers sometimes call in to complain they have mistakenly received letters intended for someone named “levy.”
– gadi dechter, government executive, may 16, 2011
- “the tax code, once you get to know it, embodies all the essence of [human] life: greed, politics, power, goodness, charity.”
– david wallace via ny times courtesy of jessica tovrov
- “thirty years of looking at forms, crosschecking forms, filling out the same memos on the same forms,” is how david foster wallace describes the work of his irs examiners in his posthumously published book, the pale king.
- loud, dramatic music like you’d hear on tv or at the movies — “dun-dun-dun” — echoes in my head as i pull a letter from our mailbox; it’s from the internal revenue service. i don’t know about you, but when uncle sam’s money collectors drop a line in the middle of summer instead of around tax time i open the thing right up. i mean, i don’t mind paying taxes. the usa is a big ol’ country, and my hard-earned money helps with such groovy things as superhighways, thermonuclear devices to protect us from rogue nations and anti-revolution insurance. but i know i paid my taxes that year. uncle sam’s records said i’d only paid a few hundred dollars, but my records showed that i’d paid a few thousand. somewhere along the way someone, and it wasn’t me, left off a digit.
– grant mcgee 8-13-10