11/9/06
Ted Roberts
2101 Aftonbrae Dr.
Huntsville, AL 35803
Recently, I had a stimulating discussion with the IRS about some bonds which matured in 2004. The discussion had to do with the fact that X dollars worth of bond repayment was NOT, as my IRS friends insisted, a profit demanding capital gain taxes. It was simply a return of my loan of ten years ago. Of course, taxes were paid on the bond interest.
We smilingly agreed on my 2004 return, after I conceeded paying some small penalty on another accounting peccadillo that involved my Sunday School teaching: mileage back and forth to Alaska, where I donated my charitable spiritual services.
Anyhow, everybody smiled and they sent me a highly convoluted form to fill out and accompany my check. (Alaska IS 4800 miles from Huntsville, Alabama - and I taught EVERY Sunday. That's a lot of miles.)
With the form is an envelope. And in the Northeast corner of that envelope was the only denigrating statement the IRS people had made in our two months of discussion. It insults my intelligence with the following statement: "Please stamp here. Post Office will not deliver mail without proper postage." How true. And without gas, the car won't go. And Walmart will not give me a pair of new shorts unless I give them $7.95 and KFC won't give me three pieces of chicken, taters, and slaw unless I fork over $4.95. I KNOW THAT! Why do these civil servants - who want to dispute my charitable services and have a deficient knowledge of geography (Alaska IS a long way from Huntsville) - think I'm so stupid? Yes, I must put a stamp on the envelope or the envelope won't go!
But let's be fair and not stomp on our government friends. (I love the IRS - they read these blogs, too, ya know.) Businesses - large and small - use the same kind of annotated envelopes. I prefer the unspoken assumption that my IQ is over 70 and I'm familiar with the concept of postage. You can call collect, OK, but you can't mail collect. Hmmm, on second thought, why not? Don't they still do "postage due"?
