You, Too, Can Fill Out a Tax Return

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the Minneapolis Tribune editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

January 31, 1953

   IT IS NICE that Sylvia Porter, the economist, is doing the series on this page explaining how to fill out an income tax form and exhorting the citizenry to do so before the Ides of March, while they still have time to do the required multiplying, subtracting and thinking.

   I find something lacking here, though.  The trouble with most of our tax experts, steeped as they are in fiscal lore, is that they ignore entirely or give but cursory treatment to points they deem simple but which, to the lay mind, are vital and compelling.

   The lay mind is usually none too sharp regarding mortgages, depreciation, accrued interest, dividends and such.  The other day, for example, I heard a fellow inquire if an annuity was when you tipped a bellhop.  In writing about tax matters procedure should be spelled out in rather elementary fashion.  After all, subtracting deductions from gross income, then subtracting exemptions ($600 per each) from that, dividing this by two and taking 22.2% of the amount on line 5 or 8(a), is not something you do in a twinkling, even with your socks off.

   OUR PURPOSE here is to get right down to the shirtsleeve execution of the income tax job, exposing it in the plain and unadorned language of one who gets mental atrophy whenever in the same room with a tax form.

   The first step is to sharpen half a dozen pencils, ferret a durable eraser out of the kitchen drawer and carry these, along with a ream or so of foolscap, to the dining room table.  Incidentally, you already should have inserted the extra table leaf.  You then find yourself with a large enough surface to writhe around on and sufficient paper for doodling purposes.

   Sit down now and open that envelope from the department of internal revenue.  Therein are your instruction sheet and two copies of the long form.  It is advisable to read the instruction sheet before starting work on the form.  The thing is enough to try man's soul but labor through it diligently.  Mired somewhere in the gobbledygook are your guideposts.

   ONE CONCLUSION you can't miss, you are stuck.  Only if you made less than $600 can you avoid payment.  And the fact that you are alive is proof that you must pay.

   Your only real immunity is to be head of a king-size household and to be getting along in years.  If you have eight or nine kids and are 65 and the sole support of Aunt Harriet and Uncle Ernest you are practically tax-proof, especially if you happen to be blind.

   The best reading on the sheet concerns deductions and you may give fleeting thought to pose, belatedly, as a champion of philanthropy.  But do not suddenly make like a financial pillar of the congregation if actually you only tossed two bits into the collection plate on those rare times when the wife dragged you to church.  Life in prison is rather confining.

   Some legitimate dodges, however, will readily strike those of facile mind and thrifty temperament as they sweat to reduce Uncle Samuel's cut.  They will note that a child born late in the year is just as good an exemption as one which arrives in February and will grieve that little Herbert came last week instead of last month.

   Also, the time to get married, income-taxwise, is not in apple blossom time but near the year's end, a December bride spelling as much on the deduction side as a grandmother.

   BUT WE who take the long view see peril in this sort of economic planning and would prefer to leave such matters to chance, expensive though it may be.  Fancy having all our birthings in December!  Not only would it play hob with the Christmas trade but doctors and nurses would go stark mad and the midwife would come back perforce.  And with all weddings confined to the same month the clergy would be engulfed, as would the florist, and rice would vanish from the grocery shelf.  This last, incidentally, would be all right with me.

   And any man who planned marriage with his mind on the department of internal revenue could be no great shakes as a mate and the prospective bride would do well to chuck him and return to her  stenography and Short Form 1040.

   There is the question of whether yourself and spouse should file separate or joint returns.  The wife and I always file jointly, feeling that it is somewhat more chummy.  A little thing, of course, but little things are the very warp and woof of marriage.  It also avoids the agony of making out two returns.

   BY NOW you should have a general idea of procedure.  You arrive at your deductions by scrutinizing your canceled checks, keeping in mind that overdraft charges are nondeductible.  The 1952 budget book may help here, too, although it probably has gathered dust since your vacation last August, when it lost all meaning.

   Persevere with stout heart and soon you will be in my enviable position.  I have dumped the whole mess into the lap of my brother-in-law.  Bless the fellow.  He is an accountant.

Copyright 2014 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.