Have I opened a personal Pandora's Box exposing my greatest skeleton in the closet? We shall soon find out...As I do every year, I logged onto the IRS.GOV site to "test" complete my tax form. But unlike every year for the past several years, I found out, to my happy surprise, that I didn't, as was usually the case, owe more money to the IRS. In fact, I am due a refund of $325!
Woo Hoo! Good news, right?
Well kinda...
When I tried to complete the online filing, the site instructed me to type in the income amounts from LAST YEAR'S tax return so it could compare and match the figures up, supposedly as a security measure to insure my identity. Well, I don't have last year's return.
Why? Is it because I'm careless with my financial records and didn't retain them as I should? No. Actually, the reason is much more fundamentally corrupt...
I didn't file my tax return last year.
In fact, I haven't filed tax returns since 2000!
Sound of klaxon sirens going off, a baritone booming voice explodes in the air "Get Him! Get that traitor!!"
Why?
Here's the whole story: Way back in December of 1999, I bought a new car, a 2000 Ford Focus ZX3. I loved the car but because of my not-so-great credit I got financed at a kinda high rate. Prior to this purchase I had not had a car payment for over a year and had really low insurance payments since I covered only state minimums on my aging Geo Metro. With the new calendar year coming up, I thought of what, at the time, seemed like a good idea to help off-set the higher expenses of a monthly car payment and higher insurance (since it was full coverage). I decided to change my W-4 form and claim a high number, like 6 or so as dependents. This would reduce the amount of money withheld for taxes. It doesn't reduce the tax obligation for your income bracket though, so instead of a rebate, one may owe taxes to the IRS if there hadn't been enough taken out.
Whew...long story short...when April 15 of the next year came 'round, I figured out I owed way more than I could afford, something like $800. Yikes! So I decided to take the risk of not filing and see what would happen.
No one contacted me. No federal agents knocked on my door wearing black suits and ties wanting to drag me away. Nothing happened.
I wanted to be responsible though, and while I may have evaded paying the taxes for the 2000 tax year, I really wanted to avoid evasion the next year, so I reduced my Line 5 number on my W-4 to 3. Well, when tax time next came around I had to pay much less, something like $200, but I still had to pay. And finances by April 2002 had gotten really tight with my DUI expenses and all. So, with trepidation, I didn't file, again.
By tax time the next year I had fallen into the cyclone of my Koyaanisqatsi period. I could barely feed and house myself, let alone pay taxes, so, again, I didn't file.
So it was for the next two years. Despite drastically reduced income, my high dependent numbers on my W-4 had me owing rather than receiving. What's more, I was in survival mode, and add to that a total animosity for the government of George W. Bush and what my tax contributions would be used for. Now I just didn't care. I ratcheted the W-4 number up to 8 and bid a "fuck you" to the government.
Last year, I decided I had to get a handle on this. The whole Wesley Snipes trial hit too close to home. I decided to reduce the W-4 number to 2 in preparation to at least reduce my debt come the next tax time, ie: now.
More than reduce my debt, it helped insure I'd be due a refund. But will my filing, that I am mailing off today, inspire a too-inquisitive IRS agent to look deeper into my history?
IRS Lackey: "Excuse me Mr. Jones? I have this return that I can't match to a previous years return..."
Mr. David Jones, IRS Supervisor: "Hmmm, really, let me see here."
"Click Click Click" go the computer keys as Mr. Jones searches the Supreme IRS Database...nicknamed "S.I.D. 5000"
S.I.D. 5000: "Good Morning, Dave. I've found the information you requested."
Mr. Jones: "Great! What's the story on this guy SID?"
SID: "He's an LH8, Dave. I think we should send out an apprehension team."
Jones: "An LH8!!! Whew!! Man, how'd we miss this guy? Thanks so much SID!"
SID: "My pleasure, Dave. Would you like to play a nice game of chess?"
IRS Lackey: "Um, Mr. Jones...what's an LH8?"
Jones: "It stands for Leona Helmsley 8. Named for the most notorious tax evader of our time. The 8 stands for the number of years this prick evaded taxes. This fucker is worse than Osama Bin-Laden!"
Lackey: "I hope we put him away for life, sir!"
Jones: "Oh we will. We will."