A look inside the IRS

The Carnival of Taxes is on its way, but I’m a little backlogged right now, primarily because I spent most of yesterday working on hubby’s and my tax return. Yes, I will describe the horrors in a coming blog.

Now, though, I have "real" stuff (i.e., paying jobs) that I have to get done, meaning the Carnival will be a little late today. In fact, it might even be after this program on the National Geographic Channel: "Inside the IRS."

So if you find yourself jonesing for tax talk before the Carnival’s tents are in place, tune in to the NGC at 10 p.m. EDT/9 p.m. Central tonight for the one-hour documentary, which includes an interview with IRS Commissioner Mark Everson.

One hour? Heck, I couldn’t even get my filing material in workable order yesterday in an hour! But maybe the folks at NatGeo TV will be able to find the soul of tax wit in such brevity. Here’s the program description from the channel’s Web site:

"As the saying goes, nothing is certain in life but death and taxes. But how well do you really know the agency that collects your federal taxes the IRS? Most of us only hear from the IRS twice a year – when we get our tax forms and when we get our refund. But what about sides of the IRS you’ve never seen? Experience the challenge of collecting trillions in taxes from hundreds of millions of taxpayers as NGC takes a look inside IRS processing facilities."

If you just can’t tear yourself away from David Caruso’s sunglasses of justice on CSI: Miami and don’t have TiVo (or still can’t work your VCR), don’t worry. This is cable; it’ll re-air.

You can stay up late and catch it at 1 a.m. Tuesday, April 10, or see another rerun Friday, April 13 (scary!) at 10 pm EDT.

Random observation: The IRS program is the only listing in today’s NGC TV grid without a rating indicator (G, 14, V, etc.). Hmmm. Possibly the director’s unexpurgated version? Probably not. And even if it was, I’m not sure I’d want to see that, whatever "that" is!

And please stay tuned here. I promise the 16th Tax Carnival will make its scheduled April 9 appearance sometime today!