The IRS guy

The sound of weeping and gnashing of teeth can be heard throughout the land at this time of year, and not just because it’s National Poetry Month, mandating by federal law that we have to memorize a new poem every day.

Another cause for our collective discomfort is that the middle of April is when income tax returns are due. “Forcibly extracted without Novocain” would describe how some feel about this event.

For many, the acronym “IRS” brings to mind an encounter with a schoolyard bully. Grasping your forearm, the bully uses brute force to make you smack yourself.

 “What’s the matter?” he asks as you involuntarily self-administer dope slaps. “Why are you hitting yourself? Gimme your lunch money.”

At least, that’s how I felt about the IRS until I became acquainted with one of its agents, the man who would eventually become my father-in-law.

It was an ambush. One evening after finishing chores on my little dairy farm, I drove into town to call upon a particular young lady with whom I had been spending a good deal of time. A large American-made car was parked outside her house. This was troubling; it was obviously a guy’s car.

I sat in my pickup and mulled things over. It was clear that she had a gentleman visitor. Should I cut and run? Or should I stride inside and fight — metaphorically, not physically, as I faint at the thought of fisticuffs — for my gal?

I took a deep breath and knocked on her door. My girlfriend opened it, smiled, and said, “Come on in. This is my father, Dale. He works for the IRS.”

Dale fixed me with a stern look as we shook hands. For some reason, I suddenly felt extremely guilty.

Digging in my pocket, I said, “I’ve got $7.87 on me. Would that be enough to keep me out of jail for the rest of today?”

Dale assured me he wasn’t there on official business; he was merely visiting his daughter. What a relief — although I then had to explain why I was at his daughter’s house at that time of night.

As I got to know Dale better, I came to realize he was just a really nice guy who happened to work for one of the government’s most misunderstood bureaucracies. He dispelled some of the notions I had about the IRS.

For instance, I had assumed that, during audits, he would pistol-whip taxpayers to extract interest and penalties. This was not the case. He would read aloud from the tax code until the auditee exclaimed, “OK, I’ll pay. Just make it stop.”

Dale had a razor sense of humor, albeit one that was accountant-centric.

One year, for Christmas, he gave me a spent rifle cartridge that had been soldered onto a trio of pennies. “It’s a Norwegian quarter,” he said, grinning. Seeing that I still didn’t get it, he explained, “Twenty-two plus three equals 25. That makes it a quarter.”

I noticed the desk in Dale’s home office sported a miniature umbrella mounted on a small block of wood. The wood beneath the umbrella was studded with little nails.

Puzzled, I asked Dale about its purpose.

“That’s my tacks shelter,” he deadpanned.

Some years later, my wife and I received one of those dreaded missives from the IRS. The letter essentially said, “Dear Taxpayer: We have ascertained you owe us one jillion dollars in unpaid taxes, plus interest and penalties. Please remit the full amount immediately, or else. P.S.: We shouldn’t have to explain what we mean by ‘or else.’”

How could this be? Our dairy farm didn’t even gross that amount. Was this a mistake, or had we simply failed to grasp the incomprehensible intricacies of our tax system?

We gave the letter to Dale, who read it and muttered, “Those blockheads!” He dashed off a letter to the IRS that said, “You blockheads. These people do NOT owe this money. You need to immediately delete these taxes, interest and penalties.”

He didn’t use those exact words, but that was the gist of it. He put it in bureaucratese so the IRS would realize they were dealing with someone “in the know.” Dale also wrote his agent number beneath his signature, which probably helped. He was such a senior government employee by then that he probably had access to the nuclear launch codes.

Dale’s letter did the trick. We soon got a reply from the IRS that essentially said, “Oops. Our bad.”

So, try not to get too uptight at tax time; everything will probably work out just fine. Besides, April is National Stress Awareness Month.

Jerry Nelson is a recovering dairy farmer from Volga, South Dakota. He and his wife, Julie, have two sons and live on the farm where Jerry’s great-grandfather homesteaded over 110 years ago. Feel free to email him at [email protected].