"Didn't I beg you that you shouldn't give to a lawyer that claim against
Immerglick which we had for the money we loaned him five years ago?" Abe
Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, as he pored over form
1040, revised January, 1918, which bore in large black letters the
heading, "INDIVIDUAL INCOME-TAX RETURN FOR CALENDAR YEAR 1917."
"Ten hundred and fifty dollars he paid us, and now I don't know should I
stick it under A, B, C, D, E, or F."
"I suppose you would rather see Immerglick get away with the whole sum
as pay eight per cent. of it to the government," Morris commented.
"I would give the government not only eight per cent., but eighteen per
cent., Mawruss, if they would only send round their representative and
fill out this here paper themselves, and leave me in peace," Abe said.
"I 'ain't done nothing for a month now but write down figures on this
rotten blank and scratch them out again, and what is going to be the
end of it I don't know."
"All the government asks of you, Abe, is to be honest," Morris said.
"Sure, I know," Abe replied. "But to be honest about fixing up this here
income-tax return, Mawruss, you've got to be a lawyer, a certified
public accountant, a mind-reader, and one of these here handwriting
experts who knows how to write the whole of the Constitution of the
United States on the back of a two-cent stamp, which take, for instance,
'N. CONTRIBUTIONS TO CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS, &C. (Enter below name and
address of each organization and amount paid to each),' and while I
'ain't given away a million dollars to charity in nineteen seventeen
exactly, I can see where next year when somebody comes round to
_schnoor_ from me five dollars for the Bella Hirshkind Home for Aged and
Indignant Females in the Borough of the Bronx, City of New York,
y'understand, he's going to get turned down on the grounds that Mr.
McAdoo only provided three lines for all charitable contributions and
I'm saving them up for the Red Cross, the S.P.C.A., and one orphan
asylum with an awful short name."
"Did it occur to you that you could give the Bella Hirshkind Home four
dollars and sixty cents and leave it out of your income-tax return
altogether?" Morris suggested.
"Listen!" Abe said. "I ain't trying to invent ways of getting around
what looks like the only good feature of this here income-tax return,
Mawruss. If Mr. McAdoo or President Wilson or whoever it was that fixed
up this here paper thought that the average man didn't need more as
three lines to put down his charities in, Mawruss, who am I that I
should set my opinion up against theirs? Am I right or wrong?"
"Well, for that matter, Abe," Morris said, "if you are up against it for
space to fill in about the Bella Hirshkind Home, how many lines did Mr.
McAdoo leave me to write in about you and Feigenbaum?"
"Me and Feigenbaum?" Abe repeated.
"Sure!" Morris said. "The time you and him had the argument should it be
pronounced Bol_shev_iki or Bolshe_vee_ki."
"Well, I was right, wasn't I?" Abe demanded.
"Certainly you were right," Morris replied. "But the question is, do I
put in the fifteen-hundred-dollar order he canceled on us under
'EXPLANATION OF LOSSES OF BUSINESS PROPERTY' or under 'J. GENERAL
DEDUCTIONS NOT REPORTED ON PAGE THREE'?"
"Put it in the same place where I would put the money which I lost from
having got it a partner which wastes dollars' and dollars' worth of time
on me every day by arguing about things which arguing couldn't help,"
Abe advised. "Because with this here income-tax proposition, Mawruss, if
you are going to waste so much time arguing about what you have lost
that you couldn't be able to remember by April first what you made,
y'understand, you would lose in addition a thousand dollars more and
fifty per cent. of the amount of the tax due, and you couldn't have the
consolation of blaming it on your partner, neither."
"It seems to me, Abe," Morris commented, "that the government makes a
big mistake limiting you to April first, because I already figured my
income tax out six times and it comes to a hundred dollars more every
time, which if they would only give me till, say, the first of August,
y'understand, I might be able to figure it out a couple dozen times more
and pay the government some real big money."
"With me, Mawruss," Abe said with a sigh, "sometimes it's more and
sometimes it's less, but it only goes to show how if a business man is
going to have such a big difference of opinion with himself, Mawruss,
what kind of a difference of opinion is he going to have with the
collector of internal revenue? So I guess the only thing for me to do is
to start all over again and this time I'll multiply the result by two,
because if I've got to pay anything extra to the government,
y'understand, I'd just as lieve do it without getting indicted first."
"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "If they started in to indict everybody which
is going to figure up their income tax wrong this year, Abe, the
government would got to draft a couple of million grand-jurymen, and
then lay off the workers on cantonments and put them to building
jails."
"And labor is scarce enough as it is, Mawruss, when you figure the
hundreds of thousands of sitsons of this country which has been taken
out of active business life during the past sixty days while they were
engaged in making up their income-tax returns," Abe said.
"Well, that will simplify things a whole lot next year, Abe," Morris
declared, "particularly in the excessive-profits department, because
owing to the time they spent in doping out what excessive profits they
had last year, the business men of the country won't have any profits
this year, excessive or otherwise."
"I should only make enough this year to pay a certified public
accountant for fixing up my income-tax return next year, Mawruss, and I
shall be satisfied," Abe said, "because who could tell, maybe next year,
Mawruss, the government wouldn't stop at wanting to know what your
income is and how you made it, but would also insist on knowing how you
spent it after it was made, which if business is so bad next year on
account of the war, Mawruss, it may be that the government, finding that
they couldn't raise enough money with an income tax and an
excessive-profits tax, will pass a law calling for a personal-extravagance
tax."
"They could get a lot of revenue that way," Morris admitted.
"Yes, and they could get it coming and going," Abe said. "Take, for
instance, the hotel and restaurant hat-check business, which I seen it
in the papers that a partnership of hat-checkers got into a dissolution
lawsuit the other day, and it come out that they made a quarter of a
million dollars profit in less than five years, y'understand. Now in a
case like that, Mawruss, the government couldn't tax them robbers an
additional eight per cent., because hat-checking ain't a profession
under 'A. INCOME FROM PROFESSIONS,' any more than burglary is. Neither
could the government soak them highwaymen for an excessive-profits tax,
because hat-checking ain't a business with an invested capital, not
unless you count as capital, _Chutzpah_, gall and a nerve like a
rhinoceros. So the only way the government could collect on tips to
hat-checkers would be to tax the tipper fifty per cent. and put it up to
the hat-checker to collect it at the source from the feller who is
foolish enough to give up his money that way."
"Sure, I know," Morris said. "But that wouldn't be a
personal-extravagance tax, Abe. That's what I would call a tax on
personal cowardice. It's the kind of a tax the government could soak a
feller which 'ain't got enough backbone to say 'No' when a head waiter
suggests celery and olives at seventy-five cents a throw."
"Whatever it is, I'm in favor of it, Mawruss," Abe said. "Also it should
ought to be collected from the feller who lets the barber get away with
ten cents extra for a teaspoonful of hair tonic, and as for face
massages, there should be a flat rate of five dollars for each
offense."
"_Aber_ don't you think that a face massage is its own punishment, Abe?"
Morris asked.
"So is attempting suicide," Abe said. "But people go to jail for it,
Mawruss."
"Well, anyhow, before the government goes to work and taxes people for
that part of their income which they spend foolishly, Abe," Morris said,
"they should get busy under the present income-tax law and prevent
anybody from getting away with anything under 'J. GENERAL DEDUCTIONS' by
claiming a drawback or bad debts arising out of personal loans, which
the government is losing thousands and thousands of dollars on many a
week-kneed business man who knew when he loaned the money to his wife's
relations that he would never even have the nerve enough to ask them to
renew their notes even. Then there is other business men which has got a
lot of customers on their books who couldn't get credit except by paying
such a high price for their goods that if they bust up there would still
be a profit, even if they settled for thirty cents on the dollar, and
when them business men start to make up their income-tax returns they
don't hesitate for a moment to charge off the balance under 'B. BAD
DEBTS ARISING FROM SALES (See instructions).'"
"I suppose such business men clears their consciences with the thought
that if they had lost the money legitimately playing pinochle, Mawruss,
the government wouldn't let them deduct a cent," Abe suggested. "And in
a way, Mawruss, they are right, because while you couldn't charge off
pinochle losses, I understand Mr. McAdoo holds that you've got to pay
income tax on pinochle profits."
"That only goes to show how much Mr. McAdoo knows about pinochle, Abe,"
Morris said, "because unless, _Gott soll huten_, a feller should drop
dead immediately after he cashes in his chips, y'understand, money which
you win at pinochle ain't an asset, Abe, it's a loan, and sooner or
later you are going to pay it back with interest."
"_You_ argue with Mr. McAdoo!" Abe advised him. "Why, as I understand
it, if you are having the game up at your own house, Mawruss, and you
happen to draw out ahead you ain't even allowed to deduct nothing for
electric light and the delicatessen supper, so strict the government
is."
"But do you mean to say that if you have a regular Saturday-night
pinochle game and you make a few dollars one Saturday night and drop it
the next and so forth, Abe, that the government wouldn't allow you to
deduct your losings from your winnings?" Morris asked.
"That's the idee," Abe said. "When you cash in at the end of each game,
Mawruss, that constitutes a separate transaction under 'H. OTHER INCOME
(including income from partnerships, fiduciaries, except that reported
under E, F, and G),' and you don't get no allowances for nothing."
"Well, that settles it," Morris said. "For the fiscal year January
first, nineteen eighteen, to December thirty-first, nineteen eighteen, I
play pinochle two-handed with my wife, Abe, and then I've always got
the come-back that I answered 'No' to question eight, 'Did your wife (or
husband) or dependent children derive income from sources independent of
your own?'"
"I don't think that Mr. McAdoo would hold that you've got to report
money which you win from your wife," Abe said.
"Why not?" Morris asked.
"Because Mr. McAdoo is a married man himself, Mawruss, and he knows that
such moneys ain't income," Abe concluded. "They're paper profits, and
you never collect on them."