It’s April 15th and that means time to bend over and take it. Whether you’ve hired a shifty accountant or you’re stuck wading through the government’s insane, out of date, confusing tax system which you don’t understand and filling out wrong could get you thrown in jail, it’s hard to imagine anything worse. Or is it? Your accountant may be a snake, and you may have no clue, but it could always be worse.
Below we present a few examples. You think you’ve got it bad? Just be glad you haven’t hired these movie assholes to do your taxes:
George Bailey, It’s A Wonderful Life
If You Hired Him: Look, much as we all root for George Bailey and want him to succeed, it’s time we faced up to something: This guy ain’t exactly a financial genius. I mean he basically ran the town bank into the ground and lost all the money of his friends and neighbors. All he had to do was hold it! It’s a fucking bank. People give you their money, you hold on to it till later. Bailey couldn’t even handle that much. What do you think the odds are that he can handle a 1040 form? Even if it’s the EZ one? I’d say almost none. If George Bailey does your taxes, better hope you have friends willing to bail you out. Otherwise it’ll be you out there ready to throw yourself off a bridge.
Tyler Durden, Fight Club
If You Hired Him: Sure he seems harmless enough and since he runs his own soap business, he ought to know a thing or two about crunching numbers. Then he tells you that you’ll have to fight him in the parking lot if you want your W2’s back and before you know it you’ve forgotten all about your April 15th deadline and you’re spending nights in underground basements getting bashed in the head and oh my god I’ve never felt so free! Fuck society and hand me that bomb Tyler. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic! Hey you know who’s good at statistics? The government. Just think of the way they keep track of who pays in… oh shit… I forgot to pay my taxes.
Han Solo, Star Wars
If You Hired Him: Han Solo’s no stranger to entanglements with the government, unfortunately his answer to an audit is running away or, when there’s a pretty girl involved, shouting a lot and pretending he’s chasing his enemy with an army of highly trained CPAs when in truth, he has only one rather hairy co-accountant. That might work on one IRS agent, but he’ll be back, and in greater numbers. Maybe Han would agree to sneak you out of the system in one of his smuggling compartments, but what kind of life is that? You’re not a Jedi, you’ve got a wife and two kids. You’ll have to go to Jabba for the money to pay off your tax debt, and we all know how that ends. Carbonite may seem like a comfortable way to spend eternity, but trust me, you’re better off dead.
Walt, Gran Torino
If You Hired Him: Walt’s actually really good at doing taxes. This meticulous oldster is a hard line, no-nonsense government loyalist who fills out his forms with a number two pencil and salutes when he drops them in the mail box. One problem: Bring your paperwork over to Walt and you may actually have to talk to him. If you talk to him, there’s a better than fair chance he may throw you off his porch before he finishes totaling up your FICA. To get Walt’s help you’ll first have to earn his respect, and that means mastering both manual labor and insensitive, racial slurs. Better get started early, he’s got a lot of work for you to do.
Dorothy Gale, The Wizard of Oz
If You Hired Her: We all love Dorothy, but she’s not the brightest kid in Kansas. When there’s a tornado coming forget the dog and get in the shelter dimwit! Dorothy lives in a foggy, happy, imagination filled world full of talking Scarecrows and Tin Woodsmen. While her family toils in the dust and suffers under the government’s boot-heel, Dorothy mostly remains oblivious. That’s what the Wizard of Oz really is, the fever dream of a lazy kid who can’t face her black and white reality of doing chores. And you want her handling your withholdings? I don’t think so. Dorothy’s brain is suitable only for slopping pigs and pretending she’s not standing in shit. Well taxes are shit, and it’ll take more than a shovel and a song to make those numbers sing.
Renton, Trainspotting
If You Hired Him: Look in general it’s not a good idea to hire a drug addict to handle your finances. A pothead might be able to pull it off, as long as you keep him knee-deep in Cheetohs; but Renton is a tweaker of the highest order. The dude’s trippin’ on heroin and most of the time he doesn’t know where he is. That part might not actually be so bad, I mean that kind of completely addled confusion is pretty much what I experience whenever I dive into a tax form anyway, being high on heroin can’t be all that different. Heck, the heroin might actually help. The problems really start when Renton comes down and realizes the world sucks, he’s broke, and you’re standing there in front of him with a fat, juicy, IRS payment. He needs his next fix, and it’ll come at your expense.
V, V for Vendetta
If You Hired Him: V’s kind of like the anti-accountant. He’s not a fan of government and he’s not big on funding it. His answer to your tax problems will invariably involve hiding in a sewer and stockpiling explosives until you’re ready to strike back and wreak your vengeance. Should you actually try to figure out how much you owe, you’ll have to do it while he glares through his mask and accuses you of being a pussy and prattles on about how they’ve corrupted your reason and robbed you of your common sense. Godammit V how am I supposed to keep track of my receipts in this miserable excuse for a hovel you call a secret lair? Batman has a batcomputer, you don’t even have a calculator. What’s that you say? You’re blowing it all up tomorrow and I won’t get my refund? You bastard.
Doc Brown, Back to the Future
If You Hired Him: Emmett Brown may be a genius when it comes to time machines, but he’s no whiz when it comes to money. How do you feel about dealing with the Libyans? More importantly how do you think the government feels about your accountant’s side business, trading bomb parts to terrorists for uranium? Granted, Doc might be able to convince Marty to help you out by going back in time and opening an interest earning savings account which when opened in the modern day will yield massive, time accrued profits, but that’s only if he doesn’t get you shot by Biff Tannen first. How do you feel about investing in manure? Yeah, me neither. A flux capacitor’s not much help when Uncle Sam’s breathing down your neck.
Vizzini, The Princess Bride
If You Hired Him: Vizzini’s too stupid to be trusted and too sneaky to be properly supervised. Supremely confident in his mental abilities yet utterly inept when it comes even to the most basic tenants of self-preservation, this is a man who so overcomplicates his thinking that he poisons himself to death. Imagine the reams of useless red-tape he’d generate, trying to find a new deduction hidden in your travel expenses. Sure Vizzini talks a good game, but if you hire him, you’ll fall victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, and only slightly less well-known is this: never go in with a Sicilian when cash is on the line.
Morpheus, The Matrix
If You Hired Him: Morpheous doesn’t even believe the real world exists, which I’m pretty sure also means he doesn’t believe in the IRS. I wish he did. You saw the way he produced all those guns out of thin air! Just imagine if he could work that same magic on your 401k. All it’d take is a little glitch… but then Morpheus probably wouldn’t see the point. He wouldn’t even let Cypher conjure up a decent meal in there, I’m pretty sure he’s not going to use a Matrix loophole to create a tax shelter. Instead he’ll probably advise you not to pay since, neither the taxes nor the government calling for them are real. Then he hands you two pills. You take the wrong one, and a wake up to find your ass in not real debtors jail which, as luck would have it, actually seems pretty real when you’re sitting in it. Thanks Morpheus, you jackass.
