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“I think I might have Alzheimer’s,” my last tax client of the day told me.
This was not a self-deprecating attempt at humor: The same thought had occurred to me about five minutes into our conversation.
“I think you might be right,” I said as gently as I could.
“I keep forgetting things,” she said. “In the middle of sentences. I’ll be saying something and then I’ll completely forget what I was trying to say.”
“Well, but you’re under a lot of pressure, too,” I said. “That doesn’t make it any easier.”
Intelligent, well-spoken woman in her late 70s. Husband a retired NYC teacher –
“He doesn’t get out much. I have his power of attorney,” she said.
Ah.
Daughter’s husband went bankrupt two years ago. Daughter, husband, and two grandchildren moved in with her and her disabled husband.
She and her disabled husband have an income a little over $21,000 a year.
“Well, but you can claim them as dependents, you know,” I said.
“I can?”
“Certainly. So long as you pay over 51% of their support, and none of them earns over $3,950 a year –“
“Barry might,” she said wearily. “He does something. He claims it’s work.”
“But you support them?”
“Oh, yes. I support them.”
“Well, then, you can’t claim Barry. But you can still claim the other three. If he and your daughter aren’t claiming them on their tax returns –“
“Oh, they haven’t filed a tax return in years,” she said.
“Right,” I said. “Still. You need to have an explicit conversation with them to make sure they’re not filing a tax return.”
Through this expedient, I was able to get her another $11,000 or so in personal exemptions, which effectively brought her taxable income down to zero. Which means she gets the thousand or so in federal tax and the $200 or so in New York State tax back.
That’s something, right?
God’s little fiduciary angel. That’s me.
###
My other clients of the day weren’t nearly as poignant, but they, too, had stories.
The elderly hippies who’d driven all the way in from Saugerties claimed to have had an income of $7,000 last year, which I knew had to be a lie, but hey! I don’t indemnify the tax returns I do, so I don’t give a shit.
In February of last year, Mr. Hippie went out to his unheated garage and proceeded to have a heart attack.
His wife noticed his absence some 14 hours later, but by that time, he’d ended up getting severe frostbite in his extremities.
They ended up having to amputate two of his toes.
“Now when someone asks me to count to 20, I have to use my balls,” he said.
He was a funny guy. His wife was pretty funny, too. In fact, I wish I’d had the opportunity to write down some of their jokes. They were totally good enough to plagiarize.
“Cool shirt,” Mrs. Hippie said, gesturing at the hideous blue work shirt with AARP Foundation: TAX-AIDE embroidered right above my left breast.
“Isn’t it, though?” I said. “With AARP, it’s all about the swag.”
Then there was the chirpy, cheerful guy in his 40s who lived in a commune and wanted to tell me all about it, and was too chirpy and cheerful to pick up my multiple hints that I didn’t particularly want to hear about it.
“We pool all our money,” he said. “We pool all our bills, too. It’s too bad the government is so up tight that they can’t recognize that people have alternate lifestyles.”
“Yes, that’s a tragedy, isn’t it?” I said.
On the drive home from Staatsburg, I realized that there is actually a way that this gentleman’s alternate lifestyle could get the tax breaks he was yearning for. It’s called an S corporation. For a split second I thought about hunting down his tax return so I could get his phone number and call him with the good news.
But then I thought, Why am I continuing to think about this tax shit?
Made a detour for Indian food. Came home, barricaded myself with the cats, played Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos as loudly as I dared.
###
There is a no doubt apocryphal story told in my family about Rachmaninoff.
It concerns my maternal grandmother, whom I never actually met but about whom I heard a lot, particularly after she was picked up by the Miami police one day while she was rooting around in a trashcan, smeared with feces.
Point of clarification: She was smeared with feces. Not the trashcan.
My grandmother was a frustrated concert pianist. Everyone in my family is extremely musical except for me. My mother was an amazingly talented violinist, and Annie is still one of the mainstays of the Santa Cruz rock ‘n’ roll/blue grass/jazz scene. Apparently, although I don’t express the music gene, I passed it on. While we were in New Mexico, Max amazed me by picking up one of Jeanna’s guitars and picking out some pretty complex melodies. In fact, he plays better than Jeanna, and she’s been playing for a while.
“Where did you learn to do that?” I asked Max. Because my one great failure as a mother was the kids’ musical education.
“Oh, you know. It’s something I mess around with sometimes,” he said.
Anyway. The apocryphal family story goes that when my grandmother was in her early 20s, she somehow ended up on a cruise ship that was also transporting the famed composer. And that she somehow got wind that old Sergey was on board so one night she launched into Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto Number One on the plunky ship piano. And at the end of her performance, a German nurse in a starched white uniform pushed a wheelchair toward her, bearing an incredibly ancient, arthritically twisted old man – the Maestro himself!
“You do me great honor,” this apparition croaked.
Demented Aunt Jane told me this story many, many times.
Years later, I tried to do the math. Rachmaninoff was only 70 when he died, which now that I am soon-to-be 63 myself is not old! I don’t think he was particularly crippled before his final illness (melanoma), and by then my grandmother was (a) the married mother of three daughters and (b) an American Jew who, as nutty as she was, would certainly have known better than to attempt an ocean cruise with a war raging in Europe.
So, this tale seems highly unlikely.
I come from a long line of pathological liars. On both sides.
This was not a self-deprecating attempt at humor: The same thought had occurred to me about five minutes into our conversation.
“I think you might be right,” I said as gently as I could.
“I keep forgetting things,” she said. “In the middle of sentences. I’ll be saying something and then I’ll completely forget what I was trying to say.”
“Well, but you’re under a lot of pressure, too,” I said. “That doesn’t make it any easier.”
Intelligent, well-spoken woman in her late 70s. Husband a retired NYC teacher –
“He doesn’t get out much. I have his power of attorney,” she said.
Ah.
Daughter’s husband went bankrupt two years ago. Daughter, husband, and two grandchildren moved in with her and her disabled husband.
She and her disabled husband have an income a little over $21,000 a year.
“Well, but you can claim them as dependents, you know,” I said.
“I can?”
“Certainly. So long as you pay over 51% of their support, and none of them earns over $3,950 a year –“
“Barry might,” she said wearily. “He does something. He claims it’s work.”
“But you support them?”
“Oh, yes. I support them.”
“Well, then, you can’t claim Barry. But you can still claim the other three. If he and your daughter aren’t claiming them on their tax returns –“
“Oh, they haven’t filed a tax return in years,” she said.
“Right,” I said. “Still. You need to have an explicit conversation with them to make sure they’re not filing a tax return.”
Through this expedient, I was able to get her another $11,000 or so in personal exemptions, which effectively brought her taxable income down to zero. Which means she gets the thousand or so in federal tax and the $200 or so in New York State tax back.
That’s something, right?
God’s little fiduciary angel. That’s me.
###
My other clients of the day weren’t nearly as poignant, but they, too, had stories.
The elderly hippies who’d driven all the way in from Saugerties claimed to have had an income of $7,000 last year, which I knew had to be a lie, but hey! I don’t indemnify the tax returns I do, so I don’t give a shit.
In February of last year, Mr. Hippie went out to his unheated garage and proceeded to have a heart attack.
His wife noticed his absence some 14 hours later, but by that time, he’d ended up getting severe frostbite in his extremities.
They ended up having to amputate two of his toes.
“Now when someone asks me to count to 20, I have to use my balls,” he said.
He was a funny guy. His wife was pretty funny, too. In fact, I wish I’d had the opportunity to write down some of their jokes. They were totally good enough to plagiarize.
“Cool shirt,” Mrs. Hippie said, gesturing at the hideous blue work shirt with AARP Foundation: TAX-AIDE embroidered right above my left breast.
“Isn’t it, though?” I said. “With AARP, it’s all about the swag.”
Then there was the chirpy, cheerful guy in his 40s who lived in a commune and wanted to tell me all about it, and was too chirpy and cheerful to pick up my multiple hints that I didn’t particularly want to hear about it.
“We pool all our money,” he said. “We pool all our bills, too. It’s too bad the government is so up tight that they can’t recognize that people have alternate lifestyles.”
“Yes, that’s a tragedy, isn’t it?” I said.
On the drive home from Staatsburg, I realized that there is actually a way that this gentleman’s alternate lifestyle could get the tax breaks he was yearning for. It’s called an S corporation. For a split second I thought about hunting down his tax return so I could get his phone number and call him with the good news.
But then I thought, Why am I continuing to think about this tax shit?
Made a detour for Indian food. Came home, barricaded myself with the cats, played Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos as loudly as I dared.
###
There is a no doubt apocryphal story told in my family about Rachmaninoff.
It concerns my maternal grandmother, whom I never actually met but about whom I heard a lot, particularly after she was picked up by the Miami police one day while she was rooting around in a trashcan, smeared with feces.
Point of clarification: She was smeared with feces. Not the trashcan.
My grandmother was a frustrated concert pianist. Everyone in my family is extremely musical except for me. My mother was an amazingly talented violinist, and Annie is still one of the mainstays of the Santa Cruz rock ‘n’ roll/blue grass/jazz scene. Apparently, although I don’t express the music gene, I passed it on. While we were in New Mexico, Max amazed me by picking up one of Jeanna’s guitars and picking out some pretty complex melodies. In fact, he plays better than Jeanna, and she’s been playing for a while.
“Where did you learn to do that?” I asked Max. Because my one great failure as a mother was the kids’ musical education.
“Oh, you know. It’s something I mess around with sometimes,” he said.
Anyway. The apocryphal family story goes that when my grandmother was in her early 20s, she somehow ended up on a cruise ship that was also transporting the famed composer. And that she somehow got wind that old Sergey was on board so one night she launched into Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto Number One on the plunky ship piano. And at the end of her performance, a German nurse in a starched white uniform pushed a wheelchair toward her, bearing an incredibly ancient, arthritically twisted old man – the Maestro himself!
“You do me great honor,” this apparition croaked.
Demented Aunt Jane told me this story many, many times.
Years later, I tried to do the math. Rachmaninoff was only 70 when he died, which now that I am soon-to-be 63 myself is not old! I don’t think he was particularly crippled before his final illness (melanoma), and by then my grandmother was (a) the married mother of three daughters and (b) an American Jew who, as nutty as she was, would certainly have known better than to attempt an ocean cruise with a war raging in Europe.
So, this tale seems highly unlikely.
I come from a long line of pathological liars. On both sides.
