Trial Balloon: April 8, 2009 Archive

The Sound of Compliance

Posted at 5:10 AM on April 8, 2009 by Dale Connelly (28 Comments)

We're getting down to crunch time on tax preparation.
April 15th is one week from today.

I noticed a comment from Donna on Sunday's Trial Balloon, mentioning that she listened to the Susan Werner / Cheryl Wheeler concert while preparing her taxes (a concert we're repeating, by the way, this afternoon at 3).
This made me wonder, what sort of music is appropriate to the tax-prep task?

Would busy, active music be best?

Loud and energetic? Ear piercing, even?

Maybe it would be best to do your taxes to the kind of music that makes your eye jelly boil so it can match the intensity of the feeling you have when you try to figure out where on Schedule D you're supposed to enter the short-term capital loss carryover from your S corporation.

Perhaps something new-agey and soothing would be more useful?
(Would we call that "Taxzak"?)
How about the blues?
Songs about money? About running away?
Traveling songs full of bridges and roadways?
Something uplifting and 'we-are-the-world-ish", to get you in the mood to pay for social services? John Philip Sousa marches, to prepare you to fork over some dollars for defense spending?
Depression ballads? Poorhouse laments? Hobo songs?

Egads! The emotions that swirl around our tax preparation rituals are so varied and complicated, maybe silence is the best possible option. Or is it?

Please help.

Comment on this post