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THE GOLF BALL AND THE SAND WEDGE A woman takes a lover home during the day while her husband is at work. Her 9-year old son comes home unexpectedly, sees them, and hides in the bedroom closet. Then the woman's husband also comes home. She puts her lover in the closet, not realizing that the little boy is in there already. The little boy says, 'Dark in here.' The man says, 'Yes, it is.' Boy - 'I have a golf ball.' Man - 'That's nice.' Boy - 'Want to buy it?' Man - 'No, thanks.' Boy - 'My dad's outside.' Man - 'OK, how much?' Boy - '$250' A few weeks later, it happens again that the boy and the lover are in the closet together. Boy - 'Dark in here.' Man - 'Yes, it is.' Boy - 'I have sand wedge.' The lover, remembering the last time, asks the boy, 'How much?' Boy - '$750' Man - 'Sold.' A few days later, the boy's father says to the boy, 'Grab your sand wedge and golf ball, let's go outside and have some short game practice.' The boy says, 'I can't, I sold my ball and sand wedge dad.' The father says, 'What?! How much did you sell them for?' Boy - '$1,000.' The father says, 'That's terrible to overcharge your friends like that. That is far more than those two things cost. I'm going to take you to church and make you confess.' They go to the church and the father makes the little boy sit in the confession booth and he closes the door. The boy says, 'Dark in here.' The priest says, 'Don't start that shit with me again. You're in my closet now!

Interesting story - about 30 years ago I got a new family for a client - parents and 2 teen-age sons. One son also had same name as his father except for middle initial. When that son showed me his W-2 - it had the father's Social Security number on it. Since he didn't have his own Social Security number with him at the time he applied for the job - he knew his father's number and used that - figuring with the same name IRS wouldn't know the difference.

Customer whose retired dad lived with him (had same name except for middle initial) was a Chrysler salesman when the company was struggling financially a few years ago. Good salesman though and, although he usually got paid at the office, corporate headquarters mailed him performance bonus checks (without the middle initial) for two months after year ended. He worried aloud one day about the store going out and Pop said "Well, hell; it's no wonder they're going broke! They've sent me two big checks lately and they don't owe me a dime!" Salesman cracked up laughing, but graciously never told the old boy what it was about.

Medlin, what states use federal withholding as part of their own revenue stream calculations? I know that a lot of states use federal AGI, but withholding? The old adage that your federal tax rate is "How much money did you make? Send it to us." must have an addendum in these states, "How much did the feds take? Send us the rest."

I PLEAD with parents not to name their children the same name as theirs. I have spent a lot of hours cleaning up messes it causes. Jr., II, III, and so on, only serve to cause the child multiple sessions and hours of grief in the adult years. On the other hand, it has be a good revenue opportunity... FYI, my daughter and son-in-law named their son something totally different from his Dad.

Apparently a bit of common sense actually prevailed, "Following feedback from the payroll and tax communities, the Treasury Department and the IRS will incorporate important changes into a new version of the Form W-4, Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate, for 2020. The 2019 version of the Form W-4 will be similar to the current 2018 version. A new draft version of the W-4 for 2019 will be available in the coming week."

Or people with just-fine skills in their native language, when dealing with a specialized topic they know nothing about. Especially if they feel like they "should" know something about it.

And sometimes (or a lot of times), people with limited skills in their native language.

Wow. That is comprehensive. Lots of excellent info in there, plus creative writing. (Probably the first time I've ever seen a tax discussion say something to the effect that "If taxable income is greater than $XXX, then you are hosed.") This is definitely a link to be bookmarked, and its clear they plan to update the info. Thanks, Max