Taxable Talk

With just twelve days until Tax Day, it's time to present our annual list of things not to do. All of the items on this list have been done by bozo taxpayers. Some have been successful while others have had, shall we say, a not-so-positive outcome. I'll be presenting a Bozo Tax Tip each day until April 14th. By the way, for a very good list of some excellent tax tips, see Joe Kristan's list at Roth Tax Updates. So on with Tip #10.

Everyone is looking for that extra deduction. One of the benefits of having children is that they you do get an exemption for each of them. An enterprising disk jockey in Wyoming thought, "Hmmmm, if I can get an exemption for my son, why not get an exemption for my dog Red." And so he added a dependent on his Form 1040.

At that time, you didn't have to put the social security number of your dependents on your tax return, and the IRS never noticed. However, the law changed and the disk jockey was faced with putting down a social security number for a dog. Not having one (of course), he noted on the next return that Red was deceased.

Tip: Dogs are wonderful companions, but they're not deductible. Making up social security numbers is not a good idea either. So this Bozo scheme is gone forever, unless you want to commit multiple felonies.