Wednesday, September 05, 2007



Tax Poetry
(Snell & Wilmer, Costa Mesa, CA). Here are the first few lines:
To withhold, or not to withhold: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous penalties,
Or to take arms against a sea of business situs tests,
And by opposing end them? To withhold: to report;
No more; and by tax reporting to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand tax audits

Poetic Tax Law
Whoever said that tax law does not appeal to our higher faculties should read this by Jim Scheinkman:
To withhold, or not to withhold: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous penalties,
Or to take arms against a sea of business situs tests,
And by opposing end them? To withhold: to report;
No more; and by tax reporting to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand tax audits
That aggressive report positions is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To withhold, to report;
To remit: perchance to 1099: ay, there's the rub;
For in that reporting what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off all of our income,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long statute of limitations;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of the IRS,
The tax agent's wrong, the taxpayer's form over substance,
The pangs of despised Treasury Regulations, the law's delay,
The insolence of the FTB and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy tax returns,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary tax code,
But that the dread of something after April 15,
The undiscover'd revenue ruling from whose bourn
No advisor returns, puzzles the analysis
And makes us rather bear those taxes we have
Than evade others that we know not of?
Thus Circular 230 Disclaimers does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of income recognition
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of AMT,
And enterprises of great adjusted gross income
With this regard their cash flow turn awry,
And lose the name of after tax profit.--Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my tax schemes remember'd.
I think I need a vacation...
Tax & Poetry