. . . that Americans tighten their belts, cut back on life-style frills such as cheese and red meat while sending in ever greater amounts of their wages to the Washington swamp in order to support America's struggling billionaires. HOW TO FIGURE INCOME TAX accurately foresees that a day may come when Communist Oligarchs in Russia and China could threaten the world-wide supremacy of the top U.S. Money Moguls. This live-action short begins by suggesting that all blue-collar working people be placed into a 92% tax bracket. (Our modern 21st Century Citizens will see this as an eerily accurate prediction of our recent "Reverse Robin Hood" tax cut for the Rich.) HOW TO FIGURE INCOME TAX also contends that government laws such as the tax code are too complicated for We Little People (aka, the ordinary, normal regular folks) to understand, and implies that we'd all be better off if such statutes were secret (aka, "classified"). Perhaps not so surprisingly, then, our leaders also have adopted this guideline since HOW TO FIGURE INCOME TAX was first released.
2 Reviews
This brief public service announcement recommends . . .
oscaralbert21 December 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Fair Entry in the Series
Michael_Elliott1 May 2011
How to Figure Income Tax (1938)
** (out of 4)
Another in the "How to..." series from MGM and Robert Benchley. This time out, as the title says, Benchley explains how those income tax papers work, what you need to know about them and what you don't need to know. The first six-minutes of this short is pretty bland as we get Benchley trying to explain the subject yet forgetting what he's doing or at other times he simply messes up on his wording or has to the look the answer up. None of this is particularly funny but Benchley is obviously working very hard trying to sell it. It's also known that Benchley had a drinking problem and I'm curious if there was something going on while making this because just watch his hands at the start of the picture as they're shaking fairly bad at times. As I said, the first six-minutes are pretty bland but we then get to the next subject, which is how to save money by telling lies on the paper. This leads to a fairly funny sequence as Benchley brags about getting away with it but sure enough there's a knock at his door and you should know what happens next. This is certainly far from a good movie but if you're in the right frame of mind you should find it mildly entertaining.
** (out of 4)
Another in the "How to..." series from MGM and Robert Benchley. This time out, as the title says, Benchley explains how those income tax papers work, what you need to know about them and what you don't need to know. The first six-minutes of this short is pretty bland as we get Benchley trying to explain the subject yet forgetting what he's doing or at other times he simply messes up on his wording or has to the look the answer up. None of this is particularly funny but Benchley is obviously working very hard trying to sell it. It's also known that Benchley had a drinking problem and I'm curious if there was something going on while making this because just watch his hands at the start of the picture as they're shaking fairly bad at times. As I said, the first six-minutes are pretty bland but we then get to the next subject, which is how to save money by telling lies on the paper. This leads to a fairly funny sequence as Benchley brags about getting away with it but sure enough there's a knock at his door and you should know what happens next. This is certainly far from a good movie but if you're in the right frame of mind you should find it mildly entertaining.
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