4
After the last guest left and we had tidied up, we sat down and they filled me in on their operation. They got most of their food from the federal government surplus food program, and most of the rest from restaurants. This was supplemented by what they could buy with a few thousand dollars a month in cash donations.
“So, the good news is that we can provide lunch and dinner three times a week,” observed Theresa.
“And the bad news is the other fifteen meals you can’t provide.”
“Spoken like a man with the soul of an accountant,” said Tom.
I realized just then how much I liked him, and how much I wanted to help the two of them expand their operations.
“May I make a suggestion?”
“Of course!” they both blurted out.
“OK, you know how forgiving the Church can be, especially to the rich?”
They both nodded, smiling.
“A few hundred thousand – or better yet, a few million – dropped onto the collection plate can sometimes go a long way.”
Theresa and Tom were grinning.
“Now correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, pausing for effect, “but don’t you hand out receipts for your donors’ contributions – whether in cash or in kind?”
“I think I see where this is going,” said Theresa.
“Really?”
“Harry, you rascal!” I always knew you were a sinner, but until now I had never realized that you were actually evil!”
“Hey, if the church can forgive the rich for their sins, then surely it can forgive the rest of us for sinning while feeding the poor!”
“And so, ex-Sister Theresa, we have the blessing of a “de-flocked” priest to commit a minor sin for the greater good.”
“So perhaps, Harry, we can rename our operation ‘the Saints and Sinner’s Soup Kitchen. That might not only get the Church on our backs, but perhaps the IRS as well.”
“Look, you guys worry about the Church and leave the worrying about the IRS to me.”
5
Call me a cynic, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned on my job it’s that most Americans want to pay as little income tax as possible. Indeed, you don’t need to be a CPA to figure that out.
The only problem is that a lot of those potential tax cheats would feel at least a little guilty – not just because cheating is illegal — but because it might even be immoral. My job is to not just keep them out of jail, but to even make them feel good about cheating Uncle Sam.
Through the late 1960s and early 1970s, a growing number of Americans opposed our involvement in the Vietnam War, and resented paying taxes to support that endeavor. So, a lot of my clients were receptive to what my colleagues and I called “creative accounting.”
Deducting the federal telephone tax from your phone bill was highly symbolic, but it was pathetically insufficient to starve the government of funds needed to pay for the war. Regretfully, my fellow accountants and I were not sufficiently imaginative to come up with anything more “creative.”
Although the Vietnam War had ended a few years ago, and the war-criminal-infested Johnson and Nixon administrations were no longer in office, perhaps more Americans still hate the federal government rather than love it. So, most of us not only want to cheat on our taxes, but feel justified in doing so.
Theresa and Tom were quite ready to provide their fellow citizens with another just cause for reducing their tax bills. Indeed, the Catholic Church and the IRS agreed that taxpayers were entitled to pay less tax if they helped feed the poor.
Like other charitable organizations, “Daily Bread” provides receipts for the cash and in-kind contributions they receive. But, adapting Jesus’s miraculous feat of feeding multitudes of the poor with just a few loaves of bread, Tom and Theresa would now try to follow a more up-to-date business model.
