Name: SAM
Occupation: Tax Collector
THE FOLLOWING IS FROM THE BEST OF HUMOR DIGEST:
Todays Subjects in the Best of Humor Digest are:
BOH: Tax Humor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOH: Tax Quotes
BOH: More Tax HumorSubject: BOH: Tax Humor
The Gettysburg address is 269 words, the Declaration of Independence is 1,337 words, and the Holy Bible is only 773,000 words. However, the tax law has grown from 11,400 words in 1913, to 7 million words today.
There are at least 480 different tax forms, each with many pages of instructions.
Even the easiest form, the 1040E has 33 pages in instructions, and all in fine print.
The IRS sends out 8 billion pages of forms and instructions each year. Laid end to end, they would stretch 28 times around the earth.
Nearly 300,000 trees are cut down yearly to produce the paper for all the IRS forms and instructions.
American taxpayers spend $200 billion and 5.4 billion hours working to comply with federal taxes each year, more than it takes to produce every car, truck, and van in the United States.
The burden of compliance is the equivalent to a staff of 3 million people working full time for a year, just to comply with the taxes on individuals and businesses.
The IRS employs 114,000 people; that's twice as many as the CIA and five times more than the FBI.
60% of taxpayers must hire a professional to get through their own return.
Taxes eat up 38.2% of the average family's income; that's more than for food, clothing and shelter combined.
AND THAT IS ONLY THE FEDERAL TAX---NOT COUNTING STATE, LOCAL, PROPERTY, SALES TAX, ETC.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Subject: BOH: Tax Quotes
"The trick is to stop thinking of it as 'your' money." (Tax Auditor)
"The hardest thing in the world to understand is income tax!" (Albert Einstein)
"When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income." (Plato)
"There are two distinct classes of men... those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon taxes." (Thomas Paine)
"The Government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul." (George Bernard Shaw)
"There is no art which one government sooner learns from another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people." (Adam Smith)
"He who has the base necessities of life should pay nothing; taxation on him who has a surplus may, if need be; extend to everything beyond necessities." (Jean Jacques Rousseau)
"Like mothers, taxes are often misunderstood, but seldom forgotten" (Lord Bramwell)
"War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen and unsupposed circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end. It has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes." (Thomas Paine)
"In the matter of taxation, every privilege is an injustice." (Voltaire)
"But in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." (Benjamin Franklin)
"A taxpayer is someone who works for the federal government but who doesn't have to take a civil service examination." (Ronald Reagan)
"Does self assessment mean that Australia will becomes a land of untold wealth?"
"There can be no doubt concerning the duty of each citizen to bear a part of the public expense. But the state on its part, insofar as it is charged with protecting and promoting the common good of its citizens, is under an obligation to assess upon them only necessary levies, which are, furthermore, proportionate to their means." (Pius XII)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Subject: BOH: More Tax Humor
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 (weightlifters, longshoremen, etc.), but nobody could do it.
One day this scrawny little man came in, 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 weightlifter, or what?"
The man replied, "No, I just work for the I.R.S."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
brought to you by:------------------------------------------------------------
Best of: Humor Mailing List
'This IS a laughing matter'
(http://www.bestofhumor.com)
* * Over 28,800 subscribers * *
------------------------------------------------------------
or you could stay here and pay your taxes.