Tax Record

Just to get this out in the open before Obama calls me up to offer me a new and prominent cabinet position for which the job description will be “Whatever goodbadi Wills,” let me just state that I have been a conscientious taxpayer (unlike certain other cabinet nominees).

In the name of full disclosure, I will note that there was an equally conscientious burp–more like a hiccup, really–in my taxpaying history back a few years ago when I decided that paying war taxes made me as guilty of murder as anyone else (a premise with which I still agree). To ease my aching soul, therefore, I withheld some of what I owed Uncle Sam and sent it off to a church international relief agency to build peace instead of bombs.

Soon after filing, though, I realized that the potential complications resulting from not paying all I owed would perhaps prevent me from doing more good than my paying the full amount of taxes would do harm. I quickly mailed off a corrected form, and the IRS and I have been on benevolent terms ever since.

I should note, too, that I have never been audited, which means I really don’t know if I’ve ever inadvertently cheated the government or myself in the reporting process. Until such an audit takes place, however, I have no other option but to claim accountability and maybe even moral superiority over the above-mentioned certain other cabinet nominees. I’ve never failed to pay taxes on my chauffeur service. I’ve never failed to pay unemployment taxes on my household help. And I sure hope I’ve not racked up more than $48,000 in back taxes and interest, since in all my life I’ve hardly earned three or four times that amount.

The obvious problem, of course, if we give these certain other cabinet nominees the benefit of the doubt and chalk them up as law-abiding wannabees, is that even the folks who supposedly pal around with the very people who write and enforce tax laws can’t or at least don’t understand the code enough to follow it.

If we don’t give them that benefit of the doubt, the obvious problem is that our laws are written by a bunch of crooks who really are right to withdraw from their appointments and leave some cabinet space for the rest of us.