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All About
the Income-Tax
A New Parlor Game
for the
Family Circle
by P.G. Wodehouse
Vanity Fair, 1919
Wodehouse (1881-1975) is the
creator of the hilariously dimwitted Bertie Wooster his perfect
"gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves.
As I sit in my poverty-stricken home, looking at the
place where the piano used to be before I had to sell it to pay my
income-tax, I find myself in thoughtful mood. The first agony of the
separation from my hard-earned, so to speak income, is over, and I can see
that I was unjust in my original opinion of the United States Government.
At first, I felt toward the U.S.G. as I would feel toward any perfect
stranger who insinuated himself into my home and stood me on my head and
went through my pockets. The only difference I could see between the U.S.G.
and the ordinary practitioner in a black mask was that the latter
occasionally left his victim carfare.
Gosh! I was bitter.
Now, however, after the lapse of weeks, I begin to
see the other side. What the Government is going to do with it, I do not
know – I can only hope that they will not spend it on foolishness and nut
sundaes and the movies – but, apparently, they needed a few billion
dollars, and you and I had to pay it. That part remains as unpleasant as
ever. But what I, like so many others, have overlooked is the
thoughtfulness of the authorities in having chosen March for the final
filling-up of their printed forms.
New Indoor Sport
You know how it is in the long Winter evenings, if
you have nothing to occupy you. You either play auction bridge, or you go
in for one of those games played with colored counters and a painted board
(than which nothing is more sapping to the soul), or else you sit and
scowl at each other and send the children early to bed. But, last March,
with the arrival of Form 10536 X-G, dullness in the home became
impossible. Our paternal government, always on the lookout for some way of
brightening the lives of the Common People, had invented the greatest
round-game in the world. Tiddleywinks has been completely superseded.
In every home, during this past Winter, it was
possible to see the delightful spectacle of a united family concentrated
on the new game. There was Father with his spectacles on, with Mother
leaning over his shoulder and pointing out that, by taking Sec. 6428 H and
shoving it on top of Sub-Sec. 9730, he could claim immunity from the tax
mentioned in Sec. 4587 M. Clustered around the table were the children,
sucking pencils and working out ways of beating the surtax.
"See, papa," cries little Cyril, "what I have found!
You are exempt from paying tax on income derived from any public utility
or the exercise of any essential governmental function accruing to any
state or territory or any political subdivision thereof or to the District
of Columbia, or income accruing to the government of any possession of
the United States or any political subdivision thereof. That means you can
knock off the price of the canary's bird-seed!"
"And, papa," chimes in little Wilbur, "I note that
Gifts (not made as a consideration for service rendered) and money and
property acquired under a will or by inheritance (but [not?] the income
derived from money or property received by gift, will, or inheritance) are
taxable and must be reported. Therefore, by referring to Sub-Sec. 2864905,
we find that you can skin the blighters for the price of the openwork
socks you gave the janitor at Christmas."
And so the game went on, each helping the other, all
working together in that perfect harmony which one so seldom sees in
families nowadays.
Nor is this all. Think how differently the head of
the family regards his nearest and dearest in these days of income-tax.
Many a man who has spent years wondering why on earth he was such a chump
as to link his lot with a woman he has disliked from the moment they
stepped out of the Niagara Falls Hotel, and a gang of children whose
existence has always seemed superfluous, gratefully revises his views as
he starts to fill up the printed form.
His wife may be a nuisance about the home, but she
comes out strong when it is a question of married man's exemption. And the
children! As the father looks at their grubby faces, and reflects that he
is entitled to knock off two hundred bones per child, the austerity of his
demeanor softens, and he pats them on the head and talks vaguely about jam
for tea at some future and unspecified date.
There is no doubt that the income-tax, whatever else
it has done, has taught the family to value one another. It is the first
practical step that has been taken against the evil of race-suicide.
One beauty of this income-tax game is that it is
educational. It enlarges the vocabulary and teaches one to think. Take,
for instance, the clause on Amortization.
In pre-income-tax days, if anyone had talked to me of
amortization, I should, no doubt, have kept up my end of the conversation
adroitly and given a reasonable display of intelligence, but all the while
I should have been wondering whether amortization was a new religion or a
form of disease which attacks parrots.
Now, however, I know all about it. You should have
seen me gaily knocking off whatever I thought wouldn't be missed for
amortization of the kitchen sink.
You would hardly believe – though I trust the
income-tax authorities will – what a frightful lot of amortization there
was at my little place last year. The cat got amortized four times, once
by a spark from the fire, the other three times by stray dogs: and it got
so bad with the goldfish that they became practically permanent amorters.
Heaven Help the Corporations!
As regards income-tax, I am, thank goodness, an
individual. I pray that I may never become a corporation. It seems to me
that some society for the prevention of cruelty to things ought to step in
between the authorities and the corporations. I have never gone deeply
into the matter, having enough troubles of my own, but a casual survey of
the laws relating to the taxing of corporations convinces me that any
corporation that gets away with its trousers and one collar-stud should
offer up Hosannahs.
The general feeling about the income-tax appears to
have been that it is all right this time, but it mustn't happen again. I
was looking through a volume of Punch, for the year 1882, the other
day, and I came across a picture of a gloomy-looking individual paying his
tax.
"I can just do it this time," he is saying, "but I
wish you would tell Her Majesty that she mustn't look on me as a source of
income in the future."
No indoor game ever achieves popularity for two
successive years, and the Government must think up something new for next
Winter.
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