Skip to content

Heinlein:Robert:Have Space Suit Will Travel:2:Unemployed Spy (Alan Sinder)

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

This is a page for Tax and the IRS

Stephensonia

Being polite helps -- if one is having IRS troubles, I'd recommend reading IRS Publication 17. It would not be dim to use the resources offered by the IRS to avoid being totally stupid. The interface between auditors of Collections and the public is called Taxpayer Services.

Unemployed Spy

“ … Dad didn't bother with banks -- just the money basket and one next to it marked "UNCLE SAM," the contents of which he bundled up and mailed to the government once a year. This caused the Internal Revenue Service considerable headache and once they sent a man to remonstrate with him. First the man demanded, then he pleaded. "But, Dr. Russell, we know your background. You've no excuse for not keeping proper records."

"But I do," Dad told him. "Up here." He tapped his forehead.

"The law requires written records."

"Look again," Dad advised him. "The law can't even require a man to read and write. More coffee?"

The man tried to get Dad to pay by check or money order. Dad read him the fine print on a dollar bill, the part about "legal tender for all debts, public and private."

In a despairing effort to get something out of the trip he asked Dad please not to fill in the space marked "occupation" with "Spy".

"Why not?"

"What? Why, because you aren't -- and it upsets people."

"Have you checked with the F.B.I.?"

"Eh? No."

"They probably wouldn't answer. But you've been very polite. I'll mark it 'Unemployed Spy . "Okay?"

The tax man almost forgot his brief case. …”

Heinlein is toying with his target audience here. As much fun as Libertarian common sense makes in juvenile fiction for the adults reading this classic to their kids. As a former T-Man I can say the the Internal Revenue Service lacks that kind of humor.

The IRS would check with the appropriate authorities. The good Doctor Russel would need to provide 1099s as he is self-employed. They say: "... Since 1913, when the states ratified the 16th amendment that gave Congress the authority to collect a federal income tax, people who work in the United States have given part of their paychecks each year to the federal government. This tax is known as the federal income tax, and it is important to file a yearly tax return that verifies that yours has been paid. You file your returns with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), a branch of the Department of the Treasury, which is the federal tax collection agency for our government.

However, while an employer may have to engage in income and payroll tax witholding (which began with the Current Payments Tax Act of 1943) in order to be a government contractor, etc, they cannot compel you to disclose your social security number, although they are required to request it, assuming you have one. Quite a number of individuals have taken the IRS to court on the argument that compulsion to file a tax return violates the 5th Amendment protection against compelled self-incrimination in a criminal proceeding. They forget, or ignore, that such protection does not apply in civil cases, claiming the 5th Amendment is absolute. Such arguments are deemed frivolous by the courts and judges frequently impose penalties of $10,000.00 upon individuals who exercise their right to make such arguments.