O THAT INCOME TAX!
I struggled with mine till the midnight hour;
My head was that of a fool;
My losses and gains, they’re beyond my power,
And never the like was, in school.
That minus sign was ever my foe
From earliest years until now;
My modest income, and varied out-go—
O they must be figured somehow!
I’ll tell you the truth, in the fear of the Lord,
I worried and went “sick abed;”
Six pages of puzzles and all a sworn word—
“O where,” I sighed, “is my head?”
“If married,” or “single”—I failed to know:
Nor dependent children could tell;
For never my mind received such a blow,
From such unexpected hell.
I always have cherished my Uncle Sam,
And thought he was oftenest right;
But flooded I was, nor a single dam
To check my downward flight.
Exhausted I slept, nor just or unjust,
Resolving the next day to seek aid;
For when I awoke ’twas still, “you must
Or penalty dire be paid.”
To the revenue clerk I took me straight,
And behold, as I looked, I heard
A lot of fond fools at Uncle Sam’s gate,
Despairing like a caged bird.
The officer smiled, and I smiled out loud,
For misery loves company;
And the smiles were like beams that broke the cloud
Of impending, rank perjury.
The blanks I filled in from A to O,
But omitted the “profits from sale”—
I once grew rich with a plow and hoe,
When a whistling boy and hale.
In those olden days no kind of a tax
For City or State revenue
Was imposed on boys except a few whacks,
But now they forever are due.
I swore and I signed and in full I paid
That puzzling tax return;
Once more I laughed, and again I said,
“’Tis always do, and you learn.”
And now it is done, and thoroughly done,
Halleluia, I’ll get there yet;
But by all that’s good and true ’neath the sun,
I swear that folly to forget.