“I can’t believe how you are persecuting me,” Jonathan said. “I’ve dedicated my entire life to selflessly caring for others, and yet here I am, faced with a flood of criticism and accusations. I’m a man of the cloth.”
“Yes, Reverend Jamison, I understand that,” the IRS auditor said, “but in reviewing your personal income tax filings, we have found a number of irregularities.”
“What did you say your name is?” Jonathan asked the auditor.
“Charles Bancroft,” the auditor responded.
“Let me ask you, Mr. Bancroft — Charles — are you married?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, God bless you and your marriage, Charles. And since you are married, you surely understand how this works,” Jonathan said. “My wife loves to go shopping. She loves leather jackets, purses, and, of course, shoes. She likes jewelry that has some glitter to it. She has to get her hair done once a week to look her very best for the cameras. You know how it is. Happy wife, happy life.”
“But Mr. Jamison,” the auditor said, “you claimed all of that spending as business expenses for your ministry.”
“Charles, you have to understand that I’m a spiritual leader and my wife is an important aspect in attracting new members to my megachurch,” Jonathan said. “She’s a beautiful woman who could have been in the movies, and I’m lucky to have her by my side. She helps with bringing in the lovely jingle jangle of coins, if you get my drift.”
“Be that as it may, Reverend Jamison,” the auditor said, “You can’t claim your trophy wife’s extravagant clothing and accessories as legitimate church business expenses. I’m disallowing them. You’ll be receiving a notification from the Internal Revenue Service within a few weeks that will itemize the penalty and interest due. Failure to comply will result in your arrest and imprisonment.”
Written for these daily prompts: Your Daily Word Prompt (dedicated), Ragtag Daily Prompt (caring/glitter), The Daily Spur (flood/hair), MMA Storytime (shopping/movies), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (leather/lucky), and Word of the Day Challenge (jingle).
The only problem with your story is the high unlikeliness of such an audit. Much more realistic if the individual being audited were a marginal person taking the earned income tax credit. But of course then it would be a different story—not the point you were making about hypocrisy and greed!
The IRS goes after the “low-hanging fruit,” unfortunately.
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Yeah, I know, unrealistic. The church (and the reverend) would hide behind its tax exempt status.
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Haha! Good one
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Reminds me of Tube of Demons guy (Kenneth Copeland) explaining how God well nigh FORCED him to buy a brand new private jet. Best not to disobey God, of course.
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It was all in the name of the church… doesn’t work that way. Great story!
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Thank you, Leigha.
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You’re welcome.
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Jonathan is a spiritual leader, is he? Sounds like he’s an evangelical. I heard it said, very recently, that the newest census data has the population at one third evangelical (not one third Christian or religiously affiliated in some way). It doesn’t “show” as spiritual, now does it? Unless one counts spiritually manifesting in a bad way — such as if looking into the eyes or soul of “Tube of Demons guy” (per READERS ROOST observation). Yet, it doesn’t have to be that dramatic.
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Here is the person who conveyed that census analysis.
No Evidence of Massive Russian Hack [plus a range of other topics]
— Larry Wilkerson {on theAnalysis-news}
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