Experts Are Puzzled

TAXES

In Philadelphia there is a cautious carpenter named John G. Harl. He decided to get at his income-tax return well before March 15. So he worked & worked, and finally figured that his tax would be $40. Then he went to a branch office of the Bureau of Internal Revenue and asked a clerk to check the return. No, said the clerk, after much figuring, the tax is $60.47. The careful carpenter then went to the main office, where another clerk figured: $222.38. Carpenter Harl was so alarmed that the clerk tried again, found a much happier answer. Now, said the clerk, the Government owes you $30.16. Carpenter Harl moved on muttering.

Three newspapermen gave him three more answers. Then the chief of the city's tax bureau made it $23.16. Philadelphia's collector of internal revenue agreed with the chief of the tax bureau. But both of them were shortly corrected by the Chief Income Tax Statistician of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, in Washington. That statistician made it $4.05 more than the carpenter's original figure, or $44.05.

Carpenter Harl let it go at that.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.