Culture . 06/25/2008 11:43 PM . Joshua Carden

I am involved in the tax industry. Specifically, I own part of a business that helps people prepare their taxes each year. It’s fun, meets a need in the marketplace, and also has the incredible side benefit of getting your youngest brother to dress as the Statue of Liberty. When his bribe money runs out, I’ll post pictures. Anyway, as a result of being part of the tax industry, I occasionally call the IRS on the phone. Hence, this article. It’s high time to lobby the IRS to replace the stupid “Check here if you want $3.00 to go toward the Presidential Election Campaign Fund” on the 1040 form. (Please tell me you’ve never checked that box. If you have, please just send me your $3.00 instead. I’ll put it to better use.)

I want that line on the forms to be replaced with “Check here if you want $3.00 to go toward downloading new IRS hold music from iTunes (or its competitors, if iTunes doesn’t immediately become a sponsor of Kritik’s website after this prime product placement opportunity). When you call the IRS, you get placed on hold. Every time. Not optional. Those of you who have ever called the IRS can back me up on this. What happens when you get placed on hold? Take the red pill and buckle up – this goes deeper than you’d ever think.

After punching in whatever random combination of numbers you happen punch, hoping against hope that all new government jobs created last quarter were in the IRS customer service department (hint: they weren’t), you get placed on hold. Not terribly unusual in and of itself. I get placed on hold by nearly everyone, including my wife and my mother. However, once the hold music kicks in, it’s all downhill from there. You begin to hear the stirring strains of the whatever-Philharmonic playing The March from Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite. As a reasonably empathetic soul, I can hear the full range of reader reactions now – “What’s the big deal, I love that ballet!” “Hey, isn’t this the song from the Smurf-Berry Crunch Cereal commercials?” “When I was nine, I thought the sugar plum fairy was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen!” “Awww, now I’m in the mood for Christmas.” “(guttural voice) Huh-huh, huh-huh, dude, you said ‘nutcracker.’”

Indeed I did, friend Butthead; indeed I did. For, in its infinite wisdom, the IRS has chosen that song, AND ONLY THAT SONG, for its hold music. Yes, the same IRS with enough individual forms to decimate an entire rain forest came up with: one song. Therefore, you hear “The March” ad nauseum for the entire duration of your stay on hold. Which could be hours – or maybe days. Nutcracker indeed.

I checked online mid-way through writing this article, and found that this issue has come up before. In fact (I’m not making this up), in 2003 the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel presented the proposal to IRS to change the hold process entirely. No luck. Blogger Loren Steffy has written a post allowing people to write in and suggest their replacement music ideas. No impact on the powers-that-be. At first, I thought this was where the issue (and this article) ended. Not so – it gets worse.

The real significance of this watershed issue – nation-defining, actually – hit me when discussing it with Chad, one of my attorney colleagues. He asked me the ultimate question: who owns the copyright to the song and gets the royalty money every time it plays? The answer hit me like a thunderbolt. Tchaikovsky was Russian! THE IRS IS SECRETLY FUNDING THE RUSSIANS THROUGH TCHAIKOVSKY’S COPYRIGHT ROYALTIES!!! Think about how many people call the IRS and sit on hold! I mean, we’re talking about BILLIONS OF DOLLARS here! This has got to stop immediately. The National Debt is bad enough as it is.

So listen up, political office seekers of 2008 and beyond: as of right now, I will vote for any candidate regardless of party affiliation, credibility, age, honesty, whatever, so long as they promise on national television to change the IRS hold music. As of right now, I am a single-issue voter. Down with the Nutcracker. Up with, well, ANYTHING ELSE. And if you get elected and then renege on that promise because of pressure from your foreign policy advisers…. Well, let’s just say I have a long memory. “No more Nutcracker” will be the “read my lips” albatross of 2008 and beyond. You have been warned.

Joshua Carden is a free-lance writer in Weatherford, Texas. He is not a conspiracy theorist. He prefers the term “suspiciously patriotic.”

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