It looks like a paper factory exploded here in the Levison Towers. Restaurant receipts litter the hallways, rental car slips are piled in nooks and corners. Sheila, our bookkeeper, has been working frantically on taxes. The two extra days to file taxes this year did nothing to alleviate the typical last minute rush to finish the paperwork. Having spent much of her time around lawyers, Sheila has become a professional procrastinator. Even though she knows that a “flat tax” would likely put her and her Certified Public ilk out of business, every year Sheila makes non-tax deductible donation to any candidate pushing for the change.
Taxes boggle my mind. Sometimes a charge or fee is a tax, like Medicare premiums. Other times, it is not, like my mandatory bar dues. As lawyers learned while arguing about federal health care insurance requirements, sometimes a charge is a tax, unless it is a fee or penalty, when it is sometimes different. For an English major like me, taxes are a liberal arts version of “The Love song of J. Alfred Proofrock.” If only the tax code were that simple.
My friends think that since I studied law, I must know all about the tax laws. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I don’t know a thing about taxes and am happy to keep it that way. Tax lawyers have a special super graduate degree, called an LLM, or “legally legalese mumblings,” which is what most of it sounds like to me. The LLM, the uber tax dork, knows things that I don’t want to know, and I pay him and my CPA happily to avoid knowing. Ignorance is bliss, even when there is a bliss tax.
As a small firm lawyer, there are many taxes and fees that I can’t deduct from taxes but am required to pay. I looked for a line on my form 1040/938.830(A) for a place to put the following “extras” that I paid over the year, but I found nothing.
Tire kicker tax: Any small law firm worries about where the next case will come from. We put our names and numbers out wherever we can to chase down calls, and then spend hours each day (hopefully) talking to potential new clients. Before we get a new client, however, we have to engage in the world’s oldest profession – sales. (I know that another service is billed as the world’s oldest profession. It is not. Before that service is performed, a sale must be made. I learned this from a sales manager I had while selling cars in college.)
Years before I was a lawyer, I sold cars. In the car business, we knew that most folks are not ready to buy a car the first time they come to the lot – they need to kick some tires first and get their minds around to the possibility that they will buy. It is the same with law firm clients. Until they feel comfortable with you as a person, they will never hire you as a lawyer. And developing that kind of relationship takes time. After a day of having my tires kicked, however, I would just as soon not have any more clients.
Pol tax: Not to be confused with a poll tax, the political tax, or pol tax, comes in the form of calls from political candidates and wannabe candidates looking for money. Lawyers, and certainly plaintiff oriented lawyers, are inundated with these calls. Perhaps it is because we are particularly sensitive to changes in the law. Perhaps it is because we are soft touches. I can’t remember the last time one of these folks called me after they were elected. Unless it was an election cycle and they were trying to raise money for the next race.
Snail’s tax: This tax is the cost lawyers pay due to delay and slow moving legal action. For a contingent fee lawyer, payment comes at the end of a case. The longer the case takes to resolve, the longer it takes to get paid. Meanwhile, other office expenses continue to mount. The snail’s tax makes litigation less profitable to the contingent fee lawyer. Likewise, insurance companies and other defendants pay more in legal fees due to the snail’s tax. Elimination of the snail’s tax might be one of the few areas where both insurance companies and contingent fee lawyers could band together for a common cause.
Reading glasses tax: Everyone knows that the lawyer’s life is full of reading. As a lawyer ages, it becomes more difficult to do, and reading glasses are required. The loss of time (and self esteem) that comes from constantly reaching for cheater glasses takes a toll on a lawyer. I recently lost a full 24 minutes looking for one of my pairs of readers. I don’t remember what I was trying to read, only that my reading glasses were in the cabinet next to an open bag of potato chips. I have noticed an increase in this tax, especially last year.
Hopefully, tax time came and went without event for you this year. I feel your pain for all the taxes you didn’t get to deduct that would have made for a larger refund. If you are like me, you would have likely just blown the refund money with online shopping anyway, which would have resulted in the ever present boondoggle tax.
©2012 under analysis llc. under analysis is a nationally syndicated column of the Levison Group. All taxes, tags and licensing fees are the responsibility of the reader. Spencer Farris is the founding partner of The S.E. Farris Law Firm in St Louis, Missouri. Comments or criticisms about this column may be sent c/o this newspaper or directly to the Levison Group via email at comments@levisongroup.com.