Simpsonian Wisdom: Taxes

This is not the first time we’ve decided to impart advice to our lovely readers based on the wisdom of Matt Groening and the Simpsons Team. Sure they entertain, but they have a message.

A message we typically dredge up from the depths of the episode and then spell out for you underneath a video clip.

MyCorp is clicking into tax season with the rest of the business world, so we only thought it fair to bring the lovable misfits from Springfield back to see what they have to say on the subject. You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who enjoys doing their taxes, except maybe for Ned Flanders, but hopefully a bit of humor will take the bite out of the process.

Or maybe it will just give you an excuse to procrastinate. That’s almost as good.

Be Prepared, like Homer!

Homer very rarely finds himself prepared for any of life’s little challenges, but we see quite a bit of maturity in the lovable head of the Simspons family. Sure, he is doing his taxes on a toilet and maybe toilet paper isn’t the best medium on which to draft your returns. But he’s saved the returns from year’s past! And he is consulting them to ensure consistency!

What a guy that Homer Simpson. As long as he remembers he has to file taxes every year, he is prepared. Now the question falls upon you, dear reader.

Are you as prepared as Homer Simpson? Hopefully you are! But if you aren’t, now is a terrific time to start sorting through that box of old receipts and getting everything in order.

What the heck are you even paying?

The finger thing – it means taxes!

The citizens of Springfield have never proven themselves to be the most educated group of people, at least politically. All you have to do is sing a song and you can sell them Monorail, so it is no surprise this little debate devolved fairly quickly.

Now you don’t want to be like them, do you? Unsure what they are paying for, going through the motions and yelling at politicians. Acting out your frustration by driving up to the IRS and booing.

The general public is woefully uneducated when it comes to taxes. Either they stop by their accountant sometime in February to let them deal with the looming April deadline, or they frantically try to figure out what forms they have to fill out and whether or not the pencils they bought for their home office count as a business deduction.

Make a point to do a bit of that old book learnin’ and try to demystify the tax season. Even if you have a magnificent accountant and you never think twice to look over what they filled out in those little boxes, it would probably do everyone good if we stopped treating taxes like theoretical physics.

Taxes will follow you wherever you go

Sadly, we don’t have a video for this one, so you will have to use your best Kennedy impersonation and a little bit of imagination.

When some foolhardy Hollywood producers decide to film Radioactive Man in Springfield, Quimby makes sure that the town gets their fair share of the production budget. And then some.
Director: [covering his eyes] We’re shutting down production.
Assistant: Yeah, well, we only have $1000 left anyway.
Quimby: Uh, there’s a $1000 leaving town tax.

Uncle Sam is waiting at every restaurant, shop, and place of business with his hand out. Occasionally the state government locks him out in the cold, but typically local politicians are all lining up for their cut of spending dollars.

Some of the larger cities are now forcing local restaurants to charge ‘meal taxes’ to diners in an attempt to fatten up their coffers. After all, tourists have to eat somewhere and who better to benefit from humanity’s need to feed than city politicians?!

If you decide to take your tax return and buy a vacation, try enjoy as much of it as possible by researching the tax laws of your destination of choice. Cities like Virginia Beach or Chicago are going to hit you where it hurts when you go out for dinner, and states like New York and Louisiana depend more on sales tax than on state tax for funding.

So, while the last thing you may want to think about after tax season is tax, we want to make sure you aren’t taking your return from Uncle Sam and handing it to someone like Diamond Joe Quimby.

And now that you’re done wasting time in Springfield, go do your taxes!