Worrying Won't Win Part 18

"Because such publicity is only the start, Abe," Morris said. "It is the first stages of what is the trouble in Germany to-day yet. For years already the Society fellers of Germany, headed by the chief Society feller of Germany, the Kaiser, has been getting their pictures into the paper dressed in soldiers' uniforms till it got to be firmly fixed in the minds of people which wasn't Society fellers that the latest up-to-the-minute idee was wearing a soldier's uniform. Also, Abe, along with such publicity goes the idee that anything Society fellers does is O.K., and it is this just-watch-our-smoke advice of the German Society fellers to the poor German people, _nebich_, which has changed the motto of Germany from '_Hei-lie! Hei-lio! Hei-lie! Hei-lio! Bei uns, geht's immer so!_' to '_Deutschland, Deutschland ueber Alles_,' and that is what brought on the war, Abe."

"You mean to say that when Mrs. Mosha van Rensselaer has her picture taken at Pallum Beach the intention is the same as when the Kaiser used to got printed a photograph of himself as colonel of the One Hundred and First Pomeranian Regiment."

"Toy Pomeranian or regular size, Abe," Morris said, "it don't make no difference, the intention in both cases was to get publicity for the fact that the sitter was a leader of Society, Abe, and so far as the Kaiser was concerned, he soon got the idee that just as the Kaiser was the leader of Society of Germans, y'understand, so Germany was the leader of the Society of Nations, and therefore that Germany should have the biggest army, the biggest navy, the biggest colonies, and the biggest territory."

"And she's going to get the biggest licking, Mawruss," Abe interrupted.

"She's got it coming to her," Morris said, "and then when we've showed Germany that she ain't such an international Society leader like she thought she was, y'understand, the Germans which was rank outsiders in Germany Society is going to look up a lot of old ill.u.s.trated Sunday supplements, and when the trial comes off before the Berlin County Court of General Sessions the district attorney is going to offer in evidence that well-known picture of the Kaiser and his six sons, and, without leaving the box, the jury will find a verdict of guilty of being German Society leaders in the first degree. Also, Abe, pictures will turn up of one of the Kaiser's hunting parties, and only the people which couldn't be identified on account of being at the edge of the photograph will escape."

"But you don't think anything like that would happen to our Society fellers, Mawruss?" Abe said.

"I think they're perfectly safe for the next hundred years or so, Abe,"

Morris said, "but, just the same, they should take example by the Society leaders over in Russland, and learn to drink coffee from the saucer and eat with the knife while there is still time."

XXV

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS THIS HERE INCOME TAX

"Didn't I beg you that you shouldn't give to a lawyer that claim against Immerglick which we had for the money we loaned him five years ago?" Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, as he pored over form 1040, revised January, 1918, which bore in large black letters the heading, "INDIVIDUAL INCOME-TAX RETURN FOR CALENDAR YEAR 1917."

"Ten hundred and fifty dollars he paid us, and now I don't know should I stick it under A, B, C, D, E, or F."

"I suppose you would rather see Immerglick get away with the whole sum as pay eight per cent. of it to the government," Morris commented.

"I would give the government not only eight per cent., but eighteen per cent., Mawruss, if they would only send round their representative and fill out this here paper themselves, and leave me in peace," Abe said.

"I 'ain't done nothing for a month now but write down figures on this rotten blank and scratch them out again, and what is going to be the end of it I don't know."

"All the government asks of you, Abe, is to be honest," Morris said.

"Sure, I know," Abe replied. "But to be honest about fixing up this here income-tax return, Mawruss, you've got to be a lawyer, a certified public accountant, a mind-reader, and one of these here handwriting experts who knows how to write the whole of the Const.i.tution of the United States on the back of a two-cent stamp, which take, for instance, 'N. CONTRIBUTIONS TO CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS, &C. (Enter below name and address of each organization and amount paid to each),' and while I 'ain't given away a million dollars to charity in nineteen seventeen exactly, I can see where next year when somebody comes round to _schnoor_ from me five dollars for the Bella Hirshkind Home for Aged and Indignant Females in the Borough of the Bronx, City of New York, y'understand, he's going to get turned down on the grounds that Mr.

McAdoo only provided three lines for all charitable contributions and I'm saving them up for the Red Cross, the S.P.C.A., and one orphan asylum with an awful short name."

"Did it occur to you that you could give the Bella Hirshkind Home four dollars and sixty cents and leave it out of your income-tax return altogether?" Morris suggested.

"Listen!" Abe said. "I ain't trying to invent ways of getting around what looks like the only good feature of this here income-tax return, Mawruss. If Mr. McAdoo or President Wilson or whoever it was that fixed up this here paper thought that the average man didn't need more as three lines to put down his charities in, Mawruss, who am I that I should set my opinion up against theirs? Am I right or wrong?"

"Well, for that matter, Abe," Morris said, "if you are up against it for s.p.a.ce to fill in about the Bella Hirshkind Home, how many lines did Mr.

McAdoo leave me to write in about you and Feigenbaum?"

"Me and Feigenbaum?" Abe repeated.

"Sure!" Morris said. "The time you and him had the argument should it be p.r.o.nounced Bol_shev_iki or Bolshe_vee_ki."

"Well, I was right, wasn't I?" Abe demanded.

"Certainly you were right," Morris replied. "But the question is, do I put in the fifteen-hundred-dollar order he canceled on us under 'EXPLANATION OF LOSSES OF BUSINESS PROPERTY' or under 'J. GENERAL DEDUCTIONS NOT REPORTED ON PAGE THREE'?"

"Put it in the same place where I would put the money which I lost from having got it a partner which wastes dollars' and dollars' worth of time on me every day by arguing about things which arguing couldn't help,"

Abe advised. "Because with this here income-tax proposition, Mawruss, if you are going to waste so much time arguing about what you have lost that you couldn't be able to remember by April first what you made, y'understand, you would lose in addition a thousand dollars more and fifty per cent. of the amount of the tax due, and you couldn't have the consolation of blaming it on your partner, neither."

"It seems to me, Abe," Morris commented, "that the government makes a big mistake limiting you to April first, because I already figured my income tax out six times and it comes to a hundred dollars more every time, which if they would only give me till, say, the first of August, y'understand, I might be able to figure it out a couple dozen times more and pay the government some real big money."

"With me, Mawruss," Abe said with a sigh, "sometimes it's more and sometimes it's less, but it only goes to show how if a business man is going to have such a big difference of opinion with himself, Mawruss, what kind of a difference of opinion is he going to have with the collector of internal revenue? So I guess the only thing for me to do is to start all over again and this time I'll multiply the result by two, because if I've got to pay anything extra to the government, y'understand, I'd just as lieve do it without getting indicted first."

"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "If they started in to indict everybody which is going to figure up their income tax wrong this year, Abe, the government would got to draft a couple of million grand-jurymen, and then lay off the workers on cantonments and put them to building jails."

"And labor is scarce enough as it is, Mawruss, when you figure the hundreds of thousands of sitsons of this country which has been taken out of active business life during the past sixty days while they were engaged in making up their income-tax returns," Abe said.

"Well, that will simplify things a whole lot next year, Abe," Morris declared, "particularly in the excessive-profits department, because owing to the time they spent in doping out what excessive profits they had last year, the business men of the country won't have any profits this year, excessive or otherwise."

"I should only make enough this year to pay a certified public accountant for fixing up my income-tax return next year, Mawruss, and I shall be satisfied," Abe said, "because who could tell, maybe next year, Mawruss, the government wouldn't stop at wanting to know what your income is and how you made it, but would also insist on knowing how you spent it after it was made, which if business is so bad next year on account of the war, Mawruss, it may be that the government, finding that they couldn't raise enough money with an income tax and an excessive-profits tax, will pa.s.s a law calling for a personal-extravagance tax."

"They could get a lot of revenue that way," Morris admitted.

"Yes, and they could get it coming and going," Abe said. "Take, for instance, the hotel and restaurant hat-check business, which I seen it in the papers that a partnership of hat-checkers got into a dissolution lawsuit the other day, and it come out that they made a quarter of a million dollars profit in less than five years, y'understand. Now in a case like that, Mawruss, the government couldn't tax them robbers an additional eight per cent., because hat-checking ain't a profession under 'A. INCOME FROM PROFESSIONS,' any more than burglary is. Neither could the government soak them highwaymen for an excessive-profits tax, because hat-checking ain't a business with an invested capital, not unless you count as capital, _Chutzpah_, gall and a nerve like a rhinoceros. So the only way the government could collect on tips to hat-checkers would be to tax the tipper fifty per cent. and put it up to the hat-checker to collect it at the source from the feller who is foolish enough to give up his money that way."

"Sure, I know," Morris said. "But that wouldn't be a personal-extravagance tax, Abe. That's what I would call a tax on personal cowardice. It's the kind of a tax the government could soak a feller which 'ain't got enough backbone to say 'No' when a head waiter suggests celery and olives at seventy-five cents a throw."

"Whatever it is, I'm in favor of it, Mawruss," Abe said. "Also it should ought to be collected from the feller who lets the barber get away with ten cents extra for a teaspoonful of hair tonic, and as for face ma.s.sages, there should be a flat rate of five dollars for each offense."

"_Aber_ don't you think that a face ma.s.sage is its own punishment, Abe?"

Morris asked.

"So is attempting suicide," Abe said. "But people go to jail for it, Mawruss."

"Well, anyhow, before the government goes to work and taxes people for that part of their income which they spend foolishly, Abe," Morris said, "they should get busy under the present income-tax law and prevent anybody from getting away with anything under 'J. GENERAL DEDUCTIONS' by claiming a drawback or bad debts arising out of personal loans, which the government is losing thousands and thousands of dollars on many a week-kneed business man who knew when he loaned the money to his wife's relations that he would never even have the nerve enough to ask them to renew their notes even. Then there is other business men which has got a lot of customers on their books who couldn't get credit except by paying such a high price for their goods that if they bust up there would still be a profit, even if they settled for thirty cents on the dollar, and when them business men start to make up their income-tax returns they don't hesitate for a moment to charge off the balance under 'B. BAD DEBTS ARISING FROM SALES (See instructions).'"

"I suppose such business men clears their consciences with the thought that if they had lost the money legitimately playing pinochle, Mawruss, the government wouldn't let them deduct a cent," Abe suggested. "And in a way, Mawruss, they are right, because while you couldn't charge off pinochle losses, I understand Mr. McAdoo holds that you've got to pay income tax on pinochle profits."

"That only goes to show how much Mr. McAdoo knows about pinochle, Abe,"

Morris said, "because unless, _Gott soll huten_, a feller should drop dead immediately after he cashes in his chips, y'understand, money which you win at pinochle ain't an a.s.set, Abe, it's a loan, and sooner or later you are going to pay it back with interest."

"_You_ argue with Mr. McAdoo!" Abe advised him. "Why, as I understand it, if you are having the game up at your own house, Mawruss, and you happen to draw out ahead you ain't even allowed to deduct nothing for electric light and the delicatessen supper, so strict the government is."

"But do you mean to say that if you have a regular Sat.u.r.day-night pinochle game and you make a few dollars one Sat.u.r.day night and drop it the next and so forth, Abe, that the government wouldn't allow you to deduct your losings from your winnings?" Morris asked.

"That's the idee," Abe said. "When you cash in at the end of each game, Mawruss, that const.i.tutes a separate transaction under 'H. OTHER INCOME (including income from partnerships, fiduciaries, except that reported under E, F, and G),' and you don't get no allowances for nothing."

"Well, that settles it," Morris said. "For the fiscal year January first, nineteen eighteen, to December thirty-first, nineteen eighteen, I play pinochle two-handed with my wife, Abe, and then I've always got the come-back that I answered 'No' to question eight, 'Did your wife (or husband) or dependent children derive income from sources independent of your own?'"

"I don't think that Mr. McAdoo would hold that you've got to report money which you win from your wife," Abe said.

"Why not?" Morris asked.

"Because Mr. McAdoo is a married man himself, Mawruss, and he knows that such moneys ain't income," Abe concluded. "They're paper profits, and you never collect on them."