The Man Who Blew the Return
A lesson to us all
By Kaye A. Thomas
Posted March 18, 2008
An all too common mistake.
By popular request we're making available the lyrics of "The Man Who Blew the Return," which was last performed years ago at a gathering of the notorious Tax Gang, many of whose members remain at large. Note that the song works through Form 1040 from beginning to end. Tax Gangsters were challenged to deduce what was wrong with the return before the problem was revealed in the final line of the song. Sadly, none of them succeeded despite the clue provided in the title of the original song, which was a hit for the Kingston Trio in 1959.
THE MAN WHO BLEW THE RETURN
(To the tune of Charlie on the MTA)
Let me tell you all the story of a man named
Charlie,
It's a tragic tale but true.
He was filling out his forms for a date in April,
And he didn't know what to do.
Oh he gathered up receipts for his form 1040,
And his calculator too.
Had his canceled checks and his 1099s,
And of course his W-2.
Chorus:
Well did he do the return? No, he blew the return,
And his fate is still unlearned.
He has three years left with the statute open,
He's the man who blew the return.
Well he started with exemptions, then he
turned to wages,
Then it's off to Schedule B.
And when Charlie decided to get down to business,
Why he turned to Schedule C.
Still he needed other forms for depreciation,
And for capital loss and gain.
With all the work he did to determine basis,
It began to hurt his brain.
Chorus
With his spirits flagging and his pencil
dragging,
Charlie turned to Schedule E.
Then the pension income and the miscellaneous,
Gave a total finally.
Then he looked for adjustments searching high and low,
But they were trivial at the most.
But he added them up, and of course subtracted,
To arrive at adjusted gross.
Chorus
Now his medical deduction wasn't large
enough,
To exceed the deduction floor.
And the amount of taxes that poor Charlie deducted,
Wasn't really that much more.
All that started Charlie thinking about his huge tax burden,
And the growing federal cost.
Could he call that a charitable contribution,
Or claim a big theft loss.
Chorus
Oh they say you should always try to give
some credit,
When the credit there is due.
But there wasn't any credit that Charlie could claim,
It was debits through and through.
So he looked at his withholding and his estimated payments,
But his payments had been lax.
So when all was said and done it was sad for Charlie,
He would have to pay some tax.
Chorus
Charlie signed his return and attached the
label,
And attached his W-2.
He attached his check drawn on current funds,
For the full amount that's due.
Then he timely sent it off to the Service Center,
So what could the problem be?
When he figured out the tax he would have to pay,
He forgot about the AMT.
Chorus
Related
- Option Technique is Patent Nonsense (previous feature)
- Tax Help Center (information on tax filing in general)
- Fairmark Fast Form Finder (finds IRS publications, too)
- Fairmark Forum (message board for questions and comments)
