Taxable Income
The hoopla of the Holiday Season has now come and gone.
Cash in the bank to pay for that spree is nigh overdrawn!
Just when I thought I was free of serious financial strain,
A packet arrived from the IRS hintin' that its tax time again!
I'll bet the feller who wrote the instructions is still a-grinnin',
As we common folk try to figger it out with our heads a-spinnin'!
My learned wife is smarter than I but she couldn't help me any.
The consarned thing may as well have been written in Afghanistani!
Although the intricacies of the system I don't quite understand,
With my trusty abacus, records and sharpened pencil in hand,
I attack the puzzlin' task hopin' that I can prevail,
Preparin' it to their satisfaction thereby avoidin' jail!
Double checkin my figgers and searchin' for deductions,
I can find no legal way to come up with further reductions.
I stare in dismay at the 'Taxable Income' on line twenty-seven.
Alas, again this year there'll be no manna from heaven!
Even with astute pencil-whippin', withheld taxes come up short.
I may have to mortgage the house to send funds with my report!
Another tax year has ended and again they have bled me dry!
As Honest Abe once said, "It hurts to much to laugh and I'm too old to cry!"
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
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