Grammar vs. United States Tax Code

I’m a CPA, I deal in numbers and law.  However law is written by lawyers who obsess with grammar and hire grammar Nazis to proofread.  This is why the US Tax Code has everyone confused. We wake up after a bill is signed into law and we realize lawmakers never read the bill, which means grammar Nazis are running the world.

Now I just want to write humor and a few novels.  My grammar has never been good.  I could not tell you what a pronoun is against an anti-noun, just way too much politics for me.  I watched an interesting documentary on Andrew Carnegie who attempted to spend his billions on making English simpler, which he thought would lead to world peace. He was such a good leader by making all those lead beams.  What, you say it’s not lead he made, but steel! Well hell, why do we call them leaders, don’t they make lead?

Why does English have so many words that are spelled the same, but have different meaning?  We have homonyms, homophones, and homographs – but are they pro or anti?  Again, way too political for me.

How many of you remember English class where you designed sentence structure by drawing little stick figures?  Mine always came out looking like an eighteen leg dragon. Sorry, my imagination has always been too rabid, like a rabid raccoon.  There, you see what I mean?  Now I’m getting text messages on the improper use of rabid.  They are telling me the proper word is rampant, not rabid. But rampant means,

(of an animal) represented standing on one hind foot with its forefeet in the air (typically in profile, facing the dexter (left) side, with right hind foot and tail raised, unless otherwise specified).

And there you have it, we have a rabid and rampant US Tax Code.  We have a diseased, biting, foamy-mouthed, uncontrollable, and extremely fanatical beast standing on one foot with its forefeet in the air, with a raised right foot and tail raised, unless otherwise specified, with an imagination that is spreading (not literally) unchecked.

Now if you can decipher that, you are a lawyer, and your client will merely believe everything you say as long as they don’t go to jail or lose their home.  You see the English language has one main purpose and that’s to create jobs so that rabidly and rampant politicians (aka, lawyers) can stand on a podium and spout or tout (by definition, I don’t care which) that they just created jobs through paper shuffling forms for which grammar Nazis are waiting to ponzi (sic). Pounce is too politically correct.  Then, if you do something wrong it is taken to tax court for interpretation.  This is all due to what the meaning of “is” is. See what I mean?  It’s just too political.

As the  2017 tax season begins I ask you to have mercy on us CPA’s.  Every year we deal with changes in the laws and sometimes we shout, “What the …”  You can fill in the blank and you would be grammatically correct.  Interpretation of the tax law is very similar to reading “50 Shades of Grey” or “Twilight”.  First, you are going to get screwed in ways unimaginable.  Second, you are going to awaken with an auditor drooling over you and watching you sweat in your sleep and waiting for the exact moment for you to give permission to suck the life-force out of you, except there’s no 50 ways of ecstacy involved.

Then to complete the nightmare, there’s also a grammar Nazi lying in the shadows like a rabid cougar (a foamy mouthed middle-aged over-sexed woman) to ponzi on you.

Clear as mud, right? Have a happy tax return day. Brought to you by the same folks who promised Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, only to be interpreted by the Supreme Court depending on the meaning of the words written and the sentiment of that day.

It’s accrual life!