Easy Income Tax Calculations

This comic postcard, which was postmarked in Oswego, N.Y., on August 27, 1932, reveals that frustration with the complexity of income tax in the United States is nothing new. In fact, this amusing account of how to calculate your tax was circulating in magazines and newspapers as early as 1919. For one example, see "It's Easy," published in the Santa Fe Magazine, August 1919, p. 58.

Take My Advice–The Next Time You Make Out Your Income Tax Report

It can be easily done by observing these simple rules. It may be worked out by algebra, astronomy, trigonometry, or syntax and then your answer may be correct or it may not be.

If your income is $2,400.00 a year and [you have] a diamond ring or an automobile and you are married to a brunette girl, 26 years of age, you take the amount of the income and add your personal property, subtract your street number, multiply by your wife's height, and divide by your telephone number. If you have a child in the family, you subtract $200.00 from your income, add your collar size, add the child's age, multiply by your waist measure, subtract the amount of funds you have given to the church in the past year, and then divide by the number of your automobile license. If there is a second child you deduct $400.00 from your income tax, add the weight and age of the child, and divide by the date of your birth, multiply by the size of your hat, and subtract the weight of your mother-in-law. After you have it all figured out you won't have to pay any tax of any nature, for they will have you in the booby hatch and strapped down.