Tag Archives: IRS

Chocolate Layer Cake 1040

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  • Line 1. Butter, a minimum of half a pound (8 oz.), but not to exceed 1 (one) pound. (See line 4.)
  • Line 2. Sugar, light brown or white, unless you or your spouse had a financial account in a foreign country in 1990, in which case dark brown sugar must be used. Do not substitute molasses or honey. Use 1 (one) cup and adjust to taste.
  • Line 3. Eggs, six or half a dozen, whichever is greater.
  • Line 4. Semisweet chocolate, 6 oz. Nonfarm families may choose the optional method of using cocoa powder. If you elect the Cocoa Method, add 1/2 oz. (One Tablespoon) of butter to each 3 tablespoons of cocoa. Multiply by .9897 per ounce of substitution. For adjustments to sugar, see pg. 29. Add total of additional butter to Line 1 (above). Sugar adjustments should be reflected in final total of Line 2. For additional details on cocoa conversion, see Form 551.
  • Line 5a. Flour, white. If you were a federal, state or local government employee, you may be eligible for an excess flour tax credit. Measure 2 cups, sifting is optional.
  • Line 5b. Flour, whole wheat, 1 2/3 cups.
  • Line 5c. Alternative mixture: 1 cup white flour plus 3/4 cup whole wheat flour.
  • Line 6. Vanilla, 1 teaspoon. See Schedule ZE for reporting use of imitation vanilla flavoring. You may be able to deduct the cost of real vanilla extract in 1991 if you itemize deductions.
  • Line 7. Salt, 1/3 teaspoon (optional). If you are a head of household with dependents and were born during a leap year, you must add salt.
  • Line 8. Baking powder, 1 1/2 teaspoons. Use of baking soda will result in a penalty. See form W-Q.Line 8a. Walnuts, 8 oz., chopped. You may be eligible to use pecans or almonds. See Part III of Schedule PE, Itemized Substitutions.
  • Line 9. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (375 if altitude exceeds 5,500 feet). Be sure that you have turned the oven on before you begin assembling ingredients. In a bowl (2 quart capacity), cream butter and sugar for 3 minutes, or until well blended, whichever occurs first. (Note: If you are using the Nonfarm Cocoa Method [see Line 4], add additional butter and sugar at this point.)
  • Line 10. Incorporate eggs, one egg at a time, into creamed mixture. If the eggs are from a farm of which you are the sole owner, you may be eligible for a Fowl Credit. See Form 9871m “For the Birds.”
  • Line 11. Add vanilla.
  • Line 12. In a double boiler, melt chocolate at low heat. If you are using the Nonfarm Cocoa Method, disregard the preceding instruction and stir cocoa into the creamed mixture. Then stir in flour from Line 5a, 5b, or 5c, add salt (optional, but see Line 7 for exception) and baking powder.
  • Line 13. Add nuts, which should be chopped, regardless of type (See Line 8a).
  • Line 14. Pour batter into 2 (two) greased and floured 8 inch round cake pans or 1 (one) greased and floured 9×13 inch pan, which you should have prepared earlier. Bake in preheated oven (see line 9) for 40 to 50 minutes, whichever is greater. After removing cake pan(s) from oven, cool for 10 minutes (12 for 9×13 pan) and turn cake(s) out onto wire rack. When cake is completely cool, frost it. (To determine time needed for cooling, complete Worksheet on pg. 25.) See Form 873 for details on appropriate frostings.

Note: If you weigh 20 percent more (or higher) than your ideal weight (see chart on pg. 19), ignore this recipe and complete Schedule F, “Fresh Fruit Desserts.”

If The IRS Was Run Like Microsoft

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  • The IRS, as always, announces new tax forms will be mailed the week before the new year. However it will follow Microsoft’s example and actually ship them the following May.
  • Responding to pressure from some large corporations and a users’ group, some early copies of the tax forms will actually be released in March. The recipients must sign non-disclosure agreements.
  • In June, the forms will be recalled because the IRS loses a suit for appropriating some other country’s intellectual property.
  • When you move, the IRS will continue to send mail to your previous address forevermore, just like Microsoft sends its product upgrade notices.
  • When you upgrade from form 1040 EZ to 1040 A, and then to 1040, you will pay an upgrade fee each time. Also you need to send in a new registration card and get a new Social Security Number. In order to upgrade, you have to submit the original first page of your previous year’s form.
  • Like Microsoft, when you file a late or amended tax return the IRS will reject it on the grounds that the prior year is no longer supported.
  • The IRS telephone help will remain similar to Microsoft’s, staffed by ill-trained, high-turnover personnel who sometimes give a correct answer, but the IRS will have to discontinue using a toll-free phone number.
  • After struggling with reams of dense documentation of complex options and rules, you discover that you will need publication 3297, with a ten-word-long title, in order to answer (you hope) a single obscure question. The IRS, like Microsoft, will charge a minimum of $40 for that publication.
  • The IRS, like Microsoft, will continue to issue immense volumes of bug fixes, interpretations, and clarifications. However the tax-rule updates should be neither easily searchable nor well-indexed.
  • Instead of three-ring binders containing complete sets of tax code bugs and interpretations, IRS rulings will be promulgated in a haphazard fashion by individual taxpayers via BBS, Usenet, and Compuserve. A for-profit publishing subsidiary would also be nice.
  • The new all-powerful (and eccentric) Commissioner of Internal Revenue will jet around the country giving speeches and granting numerous interviews, but only to sycophantic reporters. Changes to the tax code will be at the whim of the Commissioner and largely kept secret until they are published.

Your Tax Forms Explained

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Enclosed is your 2014/2015 United States Internal Revenue service Tax Form 1040-ES OCR “Estimated Tax For Self-Employed Individuals.” You may use this form to estimate your 2014 fiscal year tax if:

  1. You are the head of a household and the sum of your spouse and dependents, minus the ages of qualifying pets (see Schedule 12G), is divisible by a whole number. (Use Supplementary Schedule 142C if pets are deceased but buried on your property)
  2. Your Gross Adjusted Income does not exceed your Adjusted Gross Income (except where applicable) and you did not pay taxable interest on dividend income prior to 1903
  3. You are not claiming a foreign tax credit, except as a “foreign” tax credit. (Warning: claiming for a foreign tax credit for a foreign “tax” credit, except where a foreign “tax credit” is involved, may result in a fine of $125,000 and 25 years imprisonment)
  4. You are not one of the following: married and filing jointly; married and not filing jointly; not married and not filing jointly; jointed but not filing; other.

INSTRUCTIONS

Type out all answers in ink with a number two lead pencil. Do not cross anything out. Do not use abbreviations or ditto marks. Do not mis-spell “miscellaneous”. Write your name, address and social security number, and the name, address and social security number of your spouse and dependents, in full on each page twice. Do not put a tick in a box marked “cross” or a cross in a box marked “tick” unless it is your wish to do the whole thing again. Do not write “Search Me” in any blank spaces. Do not make anything up.

Complete sections 47 to 52 first then proceed to even-numbered sections and complete in reverse order. Do not use this form if your total pensions and annuities disbursements were greater than your advanced earned income credits or vice versa.

Under “income”, list all wages, salaries, net foreign source taxable income, royalties, tips, gratuities, taxable interest, capital gains, air miles, pints paid on and money found down the back of the sofa. If your earnings are derived wholly, or partially but not primarily, or wholly and partially but not primarily from countries other than the United States (if uncertain, see USIA Leaflet 212W, “Countries That Are Not The United States”) or your rotated gross income from Schedule H was greater than your earned income credit on non-taxable net disbursements, you must include a Grantor/Transferor Waiver Voucher. Failure to do so may result in a fine of $1,500,000 and seizure of a child.

Under Section 890f, list total farm income (if none give details). If you were born after January 1, 1897, and are not a widow(er), include excess casualty losses and provide carryover figures for depreciation on line 27iii. You must list number of turkeys slaughtered for export. Subtract, but do not deduct, net gross dividends from pro rata interest payments, multiply by the total number of steps in your home and enter on line 356d.

On Schedule F1001, line c, list the contents of your garage. Include all electrical and non-electrical items on Schedule 295D but do not include any electrical or non-electrical items not listed on Supplementary Form 243d.

Under “Personal Expenditures”, itemize all cash expenditures of more than one dollar and include verification. If you have had dental work and you are not claiming a refund on the federal oil spill allowance, enter your shoe sizes since birth and enclose specimen shoes (Right foot only) Multiply by 1.5 or 1,319, whichever is larger, and divide line 3f by 3d. Under Section 912g, enter federal income support grants for the production of alfalfa, barley (but not sorghum, unless for home consumption) and okra whether or not you received any. Failure to do so may result in a fine on $3,750,000 and death by lethal injection.

If your children are dependent but not living at home, or living at home but not dependent, or dependent and living at home but hardly ever there and you are not claiming exemption for losses of maritime vessels in excess of 12,000 tonnes deadweight (15,000 tonnes if you are military personnel based in Canada) you must complete and include a Maritime Vessel Exemption Form. Failure to do so may result in a fine of $111,000,000 and a nuclear attack on a small, neutral country.

On Pages 924 through 926, Schedule D, enter the names of people you know personally who are Communist or use drugs (Use extra pages if necessary).

If you have interest earnings from savings accounts, securities, bearer bonds, certificates of deposit or other fiduciary instruments, but do not know your hat size, complete Supplementary Schedules 112d and 112f and enclose with all relevant tables. (Do not send chairs at this time.) Include, but do not collate, ongoing losses from mining investments, commodities transactions and organ transplants, divide by the number of motel visits you made in 1996, and enter in any remaining spaces. If you have unreimbursed employee expenses, tough.

To compute your estimated tax, add lines 27 through 964, deduct lines 45a and 699f from Schedule 2F (if greater or less than 2.2% of average alternative estimated tax for the last five years), multiply by the number of RPMs your car registers when stuck on ice, and add 2. If line 997 is smaller than line 998, start again. In the space marked “Tax Due”, write a very large figure.

Make your check payable to “Internal Revenue Service Of The United States Of America And To The Republic For Which It Stands, One Nation, Under God With Liberty And Justice For All” and mark for the attention of Connie. On the back of your check write your social security number, Taxpayer Identification Number, IRS Tax Code Audit Number(s), IRS Regional Office Sub-Unit Zone Number (unless you are filing a T/45 Sub-Unit Zone Exclusion Notice), sexual orientation and smoking preference and send to:

Internal Revenue Service Of The United States Of America
Tax Reception And Orientation Center
Building D
Annex G78
Suite 900
Subduction Zone 12
Box 132677-02
Drawer 2, About Halfway Back
Federal City
Maryland 10001

If you have any questions about filing, or require assistance with your return, phone 1-800-BUSY-SIGNAL. Thank you and have a prosperous 2015. Failure to do so may result in a fine of $125,000 and a long walk to the cooler.

How to Mess With the IRS

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  • Always put staples in the right hand corner. Go ahead and put a down the whole right side. The extractors who remove the mail from the envelopes have to take out any staples in the right side.
  • Never arrange paperwork in the right order, or even facing the right way. Put a few upside down and backwards. That way they have to remove all your staples rearrange your paperwork and re-staple it (on the left side).
  • Line the bottom of your envelope with Elmer’s glue and let it dry before you put in your forms, so that the automated opener doesn’t open it and the extractor has to open it by hand.
  • If you’re very unfortunate and have to pay taxes use a two or three party check.
  • On top of paying with a three party check pay one of the dollars you owe in cash. When an extractor receives cash, no matter how small an amount, he has to take it to a special desk and fill out of few nasty forms.
  • Write a little letter of appreciation. Any letter received has to be read and stamped regardless of what it is or what its on.
  • Write your letter on something misshapen and unconventional. Like on the back of a Kroger sack.
  • When you mail it, mail it in a big envelope (even if its just a single EZi form). Big envelopes have to be torn and sorted differently than regular business size ones. An added bonus to the big envelope is that they take priority over other mail, so the workers can hurry up and deal with your mess.
  • If you send 2 checks they’ll have to staple your unsightly envelope to your half destroyed form.
  • Always put extra paper clips on your forms. Any foreign fasteners or the like have to be removed and put away.
  • Sign your name in ink on every page. Any signature has to verified and then date stamped.

These are just a few of the fun and exciting things you can do with the man. These methods are only recommended when you owe money.

The Bar Bet

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The local bar was so sure that its bartender was the strongest man around that they offered a standing $1000 bet.

The bartender would squeeze a lemon until all the juice ran into a glass, and hand the lemon to a patron. Anyone who could squeeze one more drop of juice out would win the money.

Many people had tried over time (weight-lifters, longshoremen, etc.) but nobody could do it.

One day this scrawny little man came into the bar, wearing thick glasses and a polyester suit, and said in a tiny squeaky voice “I’d like to try the bet.”

After the laughter had died down, the bartender said OK, grabbed a lemon, and squeezed away. Then he handed the wrinkled remains of the rind to the little man.

But the crowd’s laughter turned to total silence as the man clenched his fist around the lemon and six drops fell into the glass.

As the crowd cheered, the bartender paid the $1000, and asked the little man, “What do you do for a living? Are you a lumberjack, a weight-lifter, what?”

The man replied, “I’m an IRS Agent.”

Dear Infernal Revenue Serviced

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I heard that y’all have really been slacking off on conducting audits here lately. It’s now down to roughly one in every forty seven bazillion returns gets audited. So, for all of the rest, you generally take the taxpayer’s word for it. Whatever they scribble on their 1040 form and send to you, y’all just have a trained monkey process it and stick it in the file.

That’s especially good news for me, since, once again, it appears the United States Government has decided they didn’t get enough of my blood throughout the year and now, come tax filing time, they’d like an emergency transfusion. A negative. B positive. AB Latte. Something.

So, while to this point in my life I’ve been straight as an arrow when dealing with y’all, I’ve decided this year to enroll in Creative Tax Filing 101.

Y’all will be getting Schedule A’s, B’s, C’s, a few Double D’s (which ought to make the male and lesbian auditors happy) and the Schedule of Bus Routes if I can lay my hands on it.

Y’all will be getting 1040’s, 1050’s, a 10-10-321 so you can call for just 10 cents a minute and a 10-100, catch you on the flip-flop, good buddy, roger that.

Furthermore, I’m kind of busy at the moment and I don’t think I’m going to have time to get all of the paperwork done by April 15. Y’all just go ahead and cut me a check for, oh, I’ll make it light on you, $275,000, and we’ll just call it even.

Yeah, I know, I’m taking a chance that I’ll be the lucky one who gets a full blown, pants around my ankles, and bent over the stove audit this year. And that I’ll wind up having to pay y’all thousands of dollars, my first born, and a goat named Clyde. I know I’m gambling with you.

But, I also hear that gambling debts are fully deductible, too. I can’t lose.

Nothing but love for ya, baby,

Ways to Insure You Get Audited

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From the folks at Hallmark.com and their creation, Maxine the Queen of Crabbiness, here are 10 ways to ensure getting audited by the IRS:

  1. Pay in pennies (delivered by sling slot).
  2. Deduct calls made to the Psychic Network in an attempt to get winning PowerBall numbers.
  3. Claim your cat as a dependent.
  4. Claim charitable deductions that equal more than your income.
  5. On the line that asks what you made this year, answer “Trouble.”
  6. Deduct adoption costs associated with adopting a new personality.
  7. Claim a home office deduction based on all the in-home counseling you give to friends and family.
  8. Wait till the last minute and copy the numbers from the guy standing next to you in line at the post office.
  9. Fill out your forms in yellow crayon.
  10. Detail 11,215 Internet stock trades — and claim you came out exactly even.

Easy Tax Form

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  1. How much money did you make?                                  $____________
  2. Send it to us.
  3. Take out a loan for more.
  4. Send it all to us.

Dear IRS

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Dear Sirs:

I am responding to your letter denying the deduction for two of the three dependents I claimed on my 1997 Federal Income Tax return. Thank you. I have questioned whether these are my children or not for years. They are evil and expensive.

It’s only fair that since they are minors and not my responsibility that the government (who, evidently, is now taxing me more to care for these waifs) knows something about them and what to expect over the next year. You may apply next year to reassign them to me and reinstate the deduction. This year they are yours!

The oldest, Kristen, is now 17. She is brilliant. Ask her! I suggest you put her to work in your office where she can answer peoples questions about their returns. While she has had no formal training, it has not seemed to hamper her knowledge of any other subject you can name. Taxes should be a breeze. Next year she is going to college. I think it’s wonderful that you will now be responsible for that little expense. While you mull that over, keep in mind she has a truck. It doesn’t run at the moment so you have the immediate decision of appropriating some Department of Defense funds to fix the vehicle or getting up early to drive her to school. Kristen also has a boyfriend. Oh joy. While she possesses all the wisdom of the universe, her alleged mother and I have felt it best to occasionally remind her of the virtues of abstinence, and in the face of overwhelming passion, safe sex. This is always uncomfortable and I’m quite relieved you will be handling it in the future. May I suggest you reinstate Joycelyn Elders who had a rather good handle on the problem.

Patrick is 14. I’ve had my suspicions about this one. His eyes are a little to close together for normal people. He may be a tax examiner himself someday if you don’t incarcerate him first.

In February I was rudely awakened at three in the morning by a police officer who was bringing Pat home. He and his friends were TP’ing houses. In the future would you like him delivered to the local IRS office or sent directly to Ogden, UT? Kids at 14 will do almost anything on a dare. His hair is purple.

Permanent dye, temporary dye, what’s the big deal? Learn to deal with it. You’ll have plenty of time since he is sitting out a few days of school after instigating a food fight. I’ll take care of filing your phone number with the vice principal. Oh yes, he, and all his friends, have raging hormones. This is the house of testosterone and it will be much more peaceful when he lives in your home. DO NOT leave any of them unsupervised with girls, explosives, inflammables, inflatables, vehicles or telephones. (I’m sure you’ll find the telephones a source of unimaginable amusement, be sure to lock out the 900 and 976 numbers!)

Heather is an alien. She slid through a time warp and appeared quite by magic one year. I’m sure this one is yours. She is 10, going on 21. She came from a bad trip in the sixties. She wears tie-dyed clothes, beads, sandals and hair that looks like Tiny Tim’s. Fortunately you will be raising my taxes to help you offset the pinch of her remedial reading courses. Hooked on Phonics is expensive so the schools dropped it. Good news! You can buy it yourself for half the amount of the deduction you are denying! It’s quite obvious we were terrible parents (ask the other two) so they have “helped” raise this one to a new level of terror. She cannot speak English. Most people under twenty understand the curious patois she fashioned out of valley girl/boys in the hood/reggae/yuppie/political double speak. I don’t. The school sends her to a speech pathologist who has her roll her R’s. It added a refreshing Mexican/Irish touch to her voice. She wears hats backwards, pants baggy and wants one of her ears pierced four more times. There is a fascination with tattoos that worries me but I’m sure you can handle it. Bring a truck when you come to get her, she sort of “nests” in her room and I think it would be easier to move the entire thing than find out what it’s really made of.

You denied two of the three deductions so I guess it’s only fair you get to pick which two you will take. I prefer you take the two youngest, I still go bankrupt with Kristen’s college expense but then I’m free! If you take the two oldest at least I have time for counseling before Heather becomes a teenager. If you take the two girls I won’t feel so bad about putting Patrick in a military academy. Please let me know of your decision as soon as possible as I have already increased the withholding on my W4 to cover the $395 in additional tax and made a down payment on an airplane.

Yours Truly,

Mr. “John Smith”

Attention IRS

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Attention: IRS

Enclosed is my 2014 tax return and payment. Please take note of the attached article from USA Today newspaper. In the article, you will see that the Pentagon is paying $171.50 for hammers and NASA has again paid $600.00 for a toilet seat.

Please find enclosed four toilet seats (value $2400) and six hammers (value $1029). This brings my total payment to $3429.00. Please note the overpayment of $22.00 and apply it to the “Presidential Election Fund,” as noted on my return. Might I suggest you the send the above mentioned fund a 1.5 inch screw.” (See attached article…HUD paid $22.00 for a 1.5 inch phillips head screw.)

It has been a pleasure to pay my tax bill this year, and I look forward to paying it again next year.

Sincerely,
A satisfied taxpayer