Katy Does Goliath

I've come to love this time of year. It is the time of year when little self-employed peasant Kate takes on the I-R-S. Yes! Armed with a bucket of chutzpah and the belief that I don't owe the government diddlysquat, no matter how much money I made last year. I call it the privileged affluent outlook on tax. One need not be privileged or affluent, just have the attitude.

The government can have only as much as I deem government deserves – which varies according to how well government has worked for me during the taxable year. Needless to say – the government, year after year, fails to perform in a manner worthy of much compensation.

It's my matching wits against the Goliath who would take every dime not tied up or tied down - if not for my creative bookkeeping, cabinets of paperwork, and the inspiration to stre-e-e-e-e-tch the limits of deductible imagination, which might lift eyebrows higher than Pelosi's – but the deductions are legal. Yessiree – legal, by the rule. Maybe within a hair's breadth of being disallowed but oh what mighty mighty hairs are those breadths which the IRS cannot argue with or deny.

Truth is, it's a natural high asswhipping once a year on the IRS. I have made the IRS wait, sometimes filing for extension. One year recently I did not file, did not request extension, and waited. They sent a "reminder" 10 months after that April deadline that I needed to file. And amazingly – that year I qualified for a small refund – sufficient to cover the penalty for filing late. When necessary, I can really "go figure."

My tax game began a decade ago when we returned to the US from Central America. I was audited more times than I can remember, actually it was 7 years in a row. Then – 3 or 4 years ago the IRS stopped. Ceased and desisted, most certainly due to the sheer genius and speed with which I responded to their audits, and with painstaking PROOF that each and every item and statement on those forms, with my signature - is within the law. For every "must pay" there is ambiguity, a loophole to squeeze and wiggle through, and I will find those holes.

The mighty Federal Tax Goliath becomes a mouse. I, a sleek shining panther with stealth, grace, without fear - moving through a jungle of tax forms; the IRS rat scurries, scurvy-toothed government, beady eyes looking for my cheese, until he sees me – I'm on guard. I keep receipts, I make copies, I have a filing system, I read - my long paw slaps the rat; buries it beneath a slingshot full of loophole b.s., within the law of course.