Strike Me Blind If I Understand This 1040 Thing

The path of least resistance, my favorite stroll, demands that today I grumble about taxes. Fine, let me be like the millionth person, I'm sure, who wonders, what the heck is up with the deduction for being blind? Now I certainly have nothing against the blind, and like most sighted people I'm terrified of the prospect of losing my sight, but really, why is blindness the only disability that's mentioned on the tax form, and which, I assume, is the only one that qualifies for a deduction? If I were deaf, paralyzed, a multiple amputee*, or a native of Pittsburgh, I'd be suing the IRS for my little piece of the deduction pie, I can asssure you. And shouldn't the question of whether you're blind be in Braille? Maybe it's a trick question. Maybe the IRS figures anyone who can read the question and then answers yes is obviously not blind and thus a liar; straight into the audit pile that return goes (reminds me of a little teaching trick I used to employ at the beginning of the school year: on the first vocabulary quiz, about two minutes into it, I'd suddenly blurt out in my best affronted, authoritarian voice, "Hey, keep your eyes on your own paper." The four or five hapless souls who jolted immediately and looked up at me with guilty eyes were the ones I had to keep an eye on for the rest of the year).

Every year I think about writing on the form, "I'm color-blind. Does that entitle me to maybe 10% of the deduction blind people get?" Unfortunately, the Federal tax form doesn't specify the use of a particular writing utensil, while my Ohio form, which doesn't ask the blindness question, requires the use of black ink only. Now if the Federal form required black ink, I think I might get a benefit of the doubt token deduction if I use green ink and write in the color-blind plea.

Did Oedipus get tax relief after blinding himself, or does the IRS not accept self-inflicted blindness?

I had to know more about this issue, so at the risk of permanent brain damage, I decided to actually look through the tax booklet for the explanation of each of the lines. Let me just say, if James Joyce had read one of these booklets cover to cover, he would have ripped up his manuscript of Finnegans Wake and declared, "What's the use? It's already been done, better than I could ever do." Anyway, in the thicket of the tax form explanations, I found this, and I quote, "If you were born before January 2, 1945, or were blind at the end of 2009, check the appropriate boxes on line 23a." Leaving aside the blatant agism here, let's examine that sentence with regard to the blindness issue. Did anyone, like me, laugh out loud at the phrase "blind at the end of 2009"? I can just hear the auditees pleading their cases now: "I'm telling you, Mr. Auditor, it was a helluva New Year's Eve party. Ask anyone who was there, they'll tell you, I was definitely blind at the end of 2009." Or what if you were blind at the beginning, middle, or close to the end of 2009, but not at the very end? I mean maybe you've been blind for years and finally for Christmas 2009 all your friends pitched in and purchased you an audience with a snake handler or some other certified faith healer, and lo and behold, on December 31, 2009, you were cured of your blindness. You deal with your blindness for 364 days of the year and you get screwed out of your deduction? Doesn't seem right, Mr. President.

* Having mentioned amputees, I feel I should get this off my chest. I've been living with this horrid case of jealousy for at least five years now, and maybe by confessing it, I'll be able to rid myself of the guilt. At the bookstore, we used to have daily meetings in the morning right before we opened up. One day, it must have been a Tuesday, somebody was showing us all the new books that were coming out that day. One of them was the book by the hiker who had gotten trapped under a rock and eventually had to cut his arm off to free himself and thus go on living. On the cover was a picture of the guy, sitting on a rock, smiling, and prominently showing his prosthetic arm. Somebody asked if the book was being discounted, like most of the other books that were anticipated big sellers. As the guy in charge checked his printouts, he said he thought it might be 25% off. Just then a co-worker, Scott, who obviously had earned his nickname of Super Scott, said, "It looks like he's already 25% off." Chortles aplenty for the truly un-PC, off-color joke. And damned if at the time, and still years later, I wasn't/am still not ticked off I didn't think of the line.

Okay, enough. I'm going to go say a rosary in thanksgiving for having all my limbs and my eyesight, and another one in penance. Trying to be amusing can be so taxing sometimes.