Study: Dead people not paying fair share of taxes

Thursday, March 11, 2010

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One of many cemeteries nationwide where an increasing number of delinquent taxpayers are making their home.

Study: Dead people not paying fair share of taxes

by John Johnson, staff reporter

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A recent study has found that dead people, especially those who have been expired for over a year, are not paying as much in federal income tax as their living counterparts. The study, which was conducted by the National Tax Institute and released yesterday, used U.S. taxpayer data from 1982 to the present to determine that those in the “deceased” demographic were paying less and less in taxes every year.

“Our findings came as a shock to us all,“ said Nancy McBride, head researcher at the NTI. “And they revealed a very disturbing trend: today's stiffs are simply not shouldering their fair share of the federal income tax. I’ve always believed that the corporations and the rich weren’t paying enough, but looking at these results, I might just have to shift the focus of my ire to the belly up, who, as it turns out, pay less than one percent of all taxes.”

“Just because they’re pushing up daisies doesn’t give them the right to stop pushing up the revenues of the U.S. Treasury,” McBride said.

While many question the validity of the study’s results, others fear the study may cause the government to come down too harshly on people who already do so much to fertilize the nation’s lawns.

The NTI board, however, proposed several ideas on how to collect from these delinquents, termed “underground deadbeat tax evaders” by federal officials. Ideas included digging up gravesites and removing any valuable jewelry worn by corpses, repossessing coffins, and refusing to grant further time extensions for cadavers to file.

“Look, cashing in your chips doesn’t excuse you from chipping in your cash, so to speak. After all, if you bought the farm, you’ve got to pay taxes on it,” McBride said.

“I think there‘s some sort of property tax involved in that,” she added. “And these people just aren’t paying.”

© 2008 The Teaspoon Times

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