Sunday,  September 9, 2012 • Vol. 13--No. 054 • 4 of 26 •  Other Editions

Who says the IRS is a Meany?



The Lighter Side
Rev. James L. Snyder

• I often hear derogatory remarks directed towards the IRS. I must admit that many of these critical remarks originated with me. Not that I do not like my good old Uncle Sam, it is that he is a little demanding When it comes to tax time.
• Every year I complain about filing my income tax and paying out gobs and gobs of dollars to the United States government. I know it is important to pay taxes, and, I pay my fair share even though it may be grudgingly.
• Throughout the years, I have complained that dear old Uncle Sam never writes me a letter. I will have to amend that complaint because I recently received a personalized letter from the IRS.
• Well, you can imagine my surprise at getting this letter. With trembling hands, I opened the letter, anxious to know what was going on in the world of Uncle Sam. I expected a detailed letter of what he was doing and how he was getting along and how the kids were and all that sort of thing. Imagine my surprise when none of that information was contained in the letter.
• From the contents of the letter, and I must say a lot of it was goobly glop, I had fallen far short of my share of income tax this past year. According to the letter, I was a gazillion dollars short of what he had expected from me and quite frankly, he was disappointed in this behavior on my part. Do not ask me how many zeros a gazillion dollars have because I do not know. I do not have that many fingers or toes.
• Although I read the letter several times it was not quite clear how much I actually owed and what plans there were in place for me to pay it back. From what I could understand from the letter, I owed good old Uncle Sam an arm and a leg, and he was highly expecting that I would come through for him.
• Well, that kind of letter did not set well with me. I was tempted to leave the country, then sneak back as an illegal alien, and not have to worry about all this nasty stuff. But, I did not have that much energy available.
• There was a phone number I was to call if I had any personal questions. Boy, did I have some personal questions. I was fully expecting not to get a real human voice when I called.
• But, again, I was pleasantly surprised. Within 30 minutes and after dozens of pushing this button and pushing that button I had on the other end of the phone a very pleasant and cheerful voice, a representative of the IRS.

(Continued on page 5)

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