An Official Tax Write-off Post

We're almost at the end of the year. And for the most part my blog has been inactive for a number of months. Which, according to sources, puts me in a rather precarious tax situation that, frankly, I would rather avoid.

My tax guy, Jeremy, the same guy who gives me most of my life counsel, including quite a bit of bad stuff, but mixed with much good, looked into blog law going back roughly to the 1600s. To be more accurate, blog law at that time was mixed in with newspaper law -- I'm trying not to be too arcane. Columnists at that time, then through the centuries since, were the same as bloggers, and newspapers came into full compliance with tax restrictions by writing "An Official Tax Write-off Post." That's what this is.

Jeremy counseled me to be more diligent in 2016 with my posts. If you post the bare minimum, the exact figure of which he doesn't know, presumably something between 1 and 31, you can get away with more. The officials will overlook a lot if they see some actual effort's being made. That effort, and keeping your nose clean in general, turns them away, smooths official ruffled feathers, and your tax bill is usually nullified. Think of it as Passover, he said. Objectively there's nothing sacred about animal blood, but if that's what they ask for, that's what you give.

Times being what they are, of course, and blogs having nothing to do with religion, once the force behind the most typical tax poobahs discerns an effort, that's when they lower their metaphorical guns of attention. I'm not saying anything that most people driven by instinct don't know. You might sweat out getting any particular task done if you aren't compelled, but once that compulsion is there, it's an imperative. Look at me right now! I'm fluent! And, honestly, I haven't been able even to whisper for the last month. I'm desperate to set the record straight.

I may as well say it, I've been down. I even qualified for a home health nurse to visit my house a couple times a week. I ate most of the sandwiches they gave me if I took it slow, but would only blow bubbles in the soup. Again, on the advice of Jeremy, to keep them coming. To put it bluntly, I've been virtually comatose, a few times to the point of twitching and babbling and messing. Not pretty. Cindy my Nurse tried to keep Jeremy out, but he came in through the bathroom window when she was out for a smoke.  And told me, It's the end of the year! The taxman draweth nigh! I roused, "How nigh?" He blurted out, "Like a wolf at the door!"

That was this morning. Since then I've been fighting with my occupational therapist, "I've got to get to the damned computer!" She protested, leading me to cry and kick and bluster, and mess myself again. Here it is now, early to mid afternoon, and I'm stuck! If the taxman was drawing nigh this morning, like a wolf at the door, what's he doing now? He might be out of control, looking for someone to destroy. And if I lose everything, I'll never make it. I need this house. It's winter. I can't be out in the cold, I'll die.

So there you have it. I don't want to be here, that's for sure. I don't want to spill my guts like this, for the gawking eyes of an ungrateful public. Hell with it, I say! What business is it of anyone, my travails? It's no one's business...

Thus I hath begun, and thus hath been published, and thus hath ended My Official Tax Write-off Post.

Tax Tips for Billionaires

Well, folks, it's here, the day the average guy hates most of all, Tax Day. Oh yes, how well I remember it: The terrible dread, so you put it off till tomorrow, then the next day, and finally have to waste April 15 getting it done.

But now I'm a billionaire, so those days are gone. At least the dreading part. They still expect you to fill out a little form. As I understand it, they didn't always. But a few of you average guys found out about it and wrote to your congressman complaining. Since it was an election year, he was all over the issue, and even bragged about it in his TV ads. "He forced billionaires to pay taxes, just like you." The good news is, since billionaires are too big to fail, they make it very simple. And, frankly, if you end up paying anything, you did it wrong.

My problem this year is I've only been a billionaire a little over a week, after the billionaire gave me $2.1 billion, so I wasn't sure what to do. It was only a couple days ago that I learned the only reason he gave me the money was to avoid his own taxes. Which is OK with me! But he's been very helpful and connected me with a tax guy whose job it is -- we pay him under the table, that's how smart he is about taxes -- to help new billionaires do it right.

Some of the details are very hush-hush, because, frankly, the IRS is always lurking, sometimes as subtly as brown blight on shrubbery. According to the billionaire, they've always got him in their sights. So he dropped me off by a grove of trees, sent me across a field, then past a motel swimming pool that's been filled in (the concrete perimeter remains), and to a particular room. There, the guy came in with a low-tech pointer and a big pad of paper. And gave us the good stuff.

He goes, "If you haven't got at least one offshore account, get on it today. Go to Home Depot, buy a big plastic tote and some duct tape, load it with cash, and find a place offshore to bury it." I took mine to the river, a good place, where I know there's plenty of sandbars. Some of these sandbars have been there for years, not counting the late spring rains that tend to wash them away till June. Right now it's mid-April; everything will be secure till the middle of May. If we're fortunate enough to get global warming, I might not have to dig them up till August.

Everyone's heard of Swiss accounts. You bury a few totes with some Swiss cheese, and the IRS naturally assumes you meant Switzerland. It's sneakier. You make the claim, then eat the cheese, saving all the way. Then there's the setting-up of trusts for make-believe relatives. Like my cousin, Athlete Foote, and my godchild, Ware Wood Shovelby; and a guy from Africa I adopted, Udum Dolt. We met at a Nigerian Independence Day celebration and he looked like he needed a father figure. It's a good story, because at the very mention of Nigeria everyone assumes anything's possible.

Of course there's also any business losses you may have had. My main business is this blog. It's tough to serve the needs of 50,000 needy readers everyday. For example, I hire a dozen guys to handle the emails I get. Everyday there's idiots with dumb questions, like, "Is Strongheart dog food still available?" We Google it and answer him "Yes" or "No," whatever the answer is. Wasting time like that's a business loss. Hiring the guys is a business loss. And if they steal from me -- and I somehow lost a couple Beatles posters just this week -- that comes out of my taxes.

The other category of business losses is failed investments. You should always invest in businesses that are fundamentally unsound and die quickly. Like tea shops, independent mattress stores, furniture stores, and, above all, carpet stores. What these fly-by-night bastards steal is one of the good financial losses, for tax purposes. (At long last I know why carpet stores are always closing.)

The other killer tax shelter is, of course, charities. It takes about 10 minutes to start and register a charity. I've had this idea for some time. Remember, my parents both died of cancer. And the official Cancer Society, with their years and years of collecting for it, still haven't come up with a cure. This leaves me, according to the scheme, with no choice but to create "My Own Cancer Society." And since I own it, any contributions I make technically stay with me. And because no one actually expects you to come up with a cure, no one's the wiser, and cancer victims aren't any worse off.

This year might be a bad year for me, tax-wise. I might still need to pay on my $450 a month disability check, received before I became a billionaire. But by next year I will have rolled that into a charity for the cure of game toes, which is my disability. Because if I come up with a cure I believe I'll be able to live without the government's monthly pittance.

It's Billionaire Patriot Day

Today, April 14, of course, is Billionaire Patriot Day, coming as it always does the day before tax day. And this year, as in the past, we billionaires want to remind all Americans that tomorrow indeed is tax day, with our message being, "Pay your taxes."

It is important for our nation to have a sound fiscal foundation upon which to rest and from which to grow. The billionaire cannot do it all on his own. As has been true from the nation's founding, it takes all of us if we are going to be the success in the world that we need to be. The billionaire shows he's got what it takes, "PLUCK ENERGY ENTERPRISE," and now it's up to the American people as a whole -- rich, poor, dirt poor, or somewhere in the middle -- to show they have those same qualities.

Everyone knows that the billionaire is exceedingly rich. He measures his money in numbers that are inconceivable to the average person. If it makes it easier for you, a billion dollars in dollar bills -- depending on how much space you leave between them -- would stretch from here to infinity and back, then make a circuit around the world 10 times before boring through the moon, skirting the sun, and coming to an end at points unknown. Try spending that kind of money; you have to do it in huge chunks if it can be done at all. And most billionaires have more than one billion!

It sounds like a lot, and it is. But the billionaires know the truth, that their wealth is actually a drop in the bucket compared to the combined wealth of the American people. Their combined wealth is so much that there's no way to illustrate the amount. Were we to plot a similar journey, how far it would stretch, there would be no end to it. It'd sound absurd, something like this, "Around the sun an infinite number of times, filling every crater on the moon an infinite number of times, and finally never coming to an end."

So while the billionaires of society are always heroes -- job creators, social exemplars, and patriots -- it is the American people who are the truest heroes, but only when they pay their taxes. If they're skirting the law and cheating America -- by itemizing deductions, etc. -- they're really only cheating themselves. They're throwing away their heroism, and leaving us very much ashamed.

It remains true, "All hail the billionaires!" That will never change. But we also must say, "All hail the good American citizen!" When he pays his taxes, he provides a solid foundation for everyone, in particular for the billionaires, to flourish, blossom, bloom and grow. The American citizen is the seed, and once he's planted -- faithful in his taxes -- from him shall always be a beautiful place for the exceeding good fortune of a few, we, your heroes, the billionaires.

You basically have 24 hours until April 15, to get your tax returns out, and correct any errors, misstatements, and outright fraud. 24 hours to be a hero and not a goat. 24 hours to avoid debtors prison, regular prison, and public shame. Make us proud, as you always have in the past. We want to be proud of you. And we shall make you proud of us.

Note: I have given my blog over to the above press release from the Billionaires of America group. But I want you to know, I agree with every word, and wish to assure you that I also will be proud of you for paying your taxes tomorrow. You know it's right, just do it. Don't cheat. Pay your full share. Then even if you go broke, at least you'll be proud.