Dr Jones, As Your Accountant, It Is My Unfortunate Duty To Inform You That Many Of Your Receipts Fall Outside The Guidelines Of The Allowable Deductions For A Professor Of Archaeology.
Dr Jones, As Your Accountant, It Is My Unfortunate Duty To Inform You That Many Of Your Receipts Fall Outside The Guidelines Of The Allowable Deductions For A Professor Of Archaeology.
Dr Jones,
Thank you for providing your financial receipts for your tax return for the 1936 calendar year. However, as your accountant, it is my unfortunate duty to inform you that many of your receipts fall outside the guidelines of the allowable deductions for a Professor of Archaeology.
To whit, the following items would almost certainly prove difficult to justify under the current tax laws were you to ever be audited:
Flights to Nepal and Egypt — while we appreciate the map with the dotted lines showing the flight routes taken to these nations, this is insufficient for a tax return. If you had a sanctioned dig in either of those two countries, could you please also provide for us registered copies of the relevant paperwork from the Chartered Institute for Archaeology and Antiquarian Studies, or local equivalent?
Whip tips — as we’ve informed you in previous years, the tax code continues to rule that whips and whip-related accoutrements are unnecessary accessories in the fulfilment of one’s duties as a tenured University professor. To be frank, this is unlikely to change in the near future.
Therapy sessions — on a personal level, we sympathise with your ongoing ophidiophobia and hope that your therapist can help you overcome this crippling fear. However, on a professional level, we fail to see how overcoming a fear of snakes is a necessary, and, hence, deductible, expense for fulfilling your duties as a lecturer.
Ark of the Covenant — under current tax laws, if we are to enter this as a capital loss, we need further details on the date you originally acquired this artefact and what it cost at that time (to be clear, we need the material cost, in either local currency or US dollars. The ‘spiritual cost of your immortal soul’, while no doubt important to you as an individual, has no value on a tax return). Furthermore, we need to confirm that the agency to which it was donated is a registered charity. Do you have any more information on this government body, other than ‘giant warehouse of boxes’?
I trust all this is in order and look forward to the provision of the requested information.
Yours faithfully,
Homer Melton, CPA