It’s April 15. Tax Day. There’s nothing funny about it, although the late Jeff MacNelly’s great cartoon from 48 (!) years ago comes pretty close. It’s worth close study.
A federal individual tax return is like a colonoscopy: nauseating, painful, tedious, highly invasive and disgusting. Except that when a colonoscopy is over, it’s over. When you file a tax return, you enter the Audit Lottery. Trust WC on this: an audit is even less fun.
WC and Mrs. WC have their 2023 federal and state income tax returns filed, and have already received a very modest refund. Not enough for fine dining, but more than enough for a Happy Meal. Good luck to each of WC’s U.S. readers who have procrastinated and are up against the deadline.
It doesn’t have to be as complicated as it is. WC’s law school federal income tax professor, the late Vance Kirby, told us that the only way to understand the U.S. Tax Code was to understand it is a spaghetti snarl of competing special interests mucking about with the simple business of government revenue. Some sections of the tax code have been magnified out of all proportion – deferred income plans under §401(k) comes to mind. Others are naked thefts of revenue and contrary to common sense and our self-interest: the credits to the farm and fossil fuel industry, for example.
No one likes it, except billionaires – cough, Trump, cough – whose battalions of accountants can manipulate the madness to avoid paying any taxes at all. Even accountants, who profit hugely from it, don’t like it. But Congress lacks to the political will to change it, let alone make it fair.
So you should get back to it, if haven’t got it filed already. Take your blood pressure medication. Good luck. You’re gonna need it.
Wickersham's Conscience 
The funniest 1040 cartoon I ever saw went something like this:
Line 1: total wages, tips, interest and dividends.
Line 2: send it in.
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Entirely too close to true.
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