Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: For most of its existence, the IRS was America's favorite
Speaker 2: government agency, but that all changed after the IRS admitted
Speaker 2: last year to certain improprieties.
Speaker 3: Tea Party and other conservative groups that rose to power
Speaker 3: early in the president's first term were unfairly targeted for
Speaker 3: special scrutiny by the IRS.
Speaker 2: By the way, whatever you think of the Tea Party movement,
Speaker 2: I think we can all agree that the only government
Speaker 2: agency there should be singling it out for special scrutiny
Speaker 2: is the fashion police. I mean pantaloons. Come on, you know, pantaloons.
Speaker 2: That is so Benjamin Frumpland. Well, anyway, since then, it
Speaker 2: has been established that the IRS also targeted liberal five
Speaker 2: oh one c fours, but not with the same level
Speaker 2: of scrutiny that they applied to the conservatives. So that's
Speaker 2: something now, I know the right wants that something to
Speaker 2: be The President Obama ordered the IRS to target them
Speaker 2: while he sat in a dark room smoking a cigar,
Speaker 2: stroke and a cat whilst an orphan boy stands outside
Speaker 2: in the rain looking through the windows, saying why, mister President, why.
Speaker 2: But as it turns out, there's been no real evidence
Speaker 2: found that the White House is involved, and the cat
Speaker 2: turned out to be a dog in the orphan actually
Speaker 2: has parents and was putting on a British accent. But
Speaker 2: the point is this, these IRS troubles do not appear
Speaker 2: to be that, but they are something, and the IRS
Speaker 2: is clearly doing their best to continue to give off
Speaker 2: scandal stink like some kind of scared scandal skunk. When
Speaker 2: we last left the IRS, their official Lois Learner, had
Speaker 2: taken the fifth rather than testify in front of Congress.
Speaker 2: So Congress asked the IRS if they would be so
Speaker 2: kind as to clicked the forward button on all of
Speaker 2: Lois Learner's emails. What happened with that?
Speaker 4: They say?
Speaker 3: The IRS has been promising to get them these emails
Speaker 3: for a year and now suddenly says that lowest Learner's
Speaker 3: computer crashed way back in twenty eleven and that many
Speaker 3: of those emails are just gone.
Speaker 2: Well that's irritating. Computers do crash, emails are lost, but
Speaker 2: typically finding that out that information takes less time than
Speaker 2: it takes to ges state amanity a year. Come on, well, first,
Speaker 2: Congress had to fill out Form twelve eighteen to a
Speaker 2: sub easy that is an email requisition form for our records.
Speaker 2: Then we throw that form into a room filled with chimps.
Speaker 2: Then then what we did is we trained the chimps
Speaker 2: to read.
Speaker 1: So things were looking good.
Speaker 2: That's when unfortunately the chimps so that that was.
Speaker 1: A whole thing.
Speaker 2: But finally we negotiated a contract. Finally we delivered a
Speaker 2: contract that chimps didn't throw the feces. At the point
Speaker 2: is email requisations are now done through a different form,
Speaker 2: so if you could reapply, etc. So it is in
Speaker 2: this environment that the new I r S Commissioner John
Speaker 2: really you like that? The new ir S Commissioner John
Speaker 2: cos skinnin kskynen coas Skinnon.
Speaker 4: I'll go with he comes before.
Speaker 2: Congress to testify. I wonder if they're going to be
Speaker 2: dicks to him.
Speaker 5: Please rise to take the oath and raise your right
Speaker 5: hand a little higher.
Speaker 2: Now, uh wow, that was easy. Uh now uh turn
Speaker 2: around and wiggle so well, we all might want to
Speaker 2: do that to the head of the irs. What does
Speaker 2: raising your hand higher have to do with telling the truth?
Speaker 2: They go, I can lie, wait, I can lie, hold on,
Speaker 2: I can lie, I can lie, I can lie. I
Speaker 2: can no longer lie, for my hand is too close
Speaker 2: to go. That's him scratching God's beard. Hello, by enough
Speaker 2: cathartic public shaming. Where are the damn emails?
Speaker 6: The actual hard drive, after it was determined that it
Speaker 6: was dysfunctional and that with experts no emails could be retrieved,
Speaker 6: was recycled and destroyed in the normal process.
Speaker 4: So was it physically destroyed, that's my understanding. So was
Speaker 4: it melted down?
Speaker 7: Do you know?
Speaker 6: I have no idea what the recycler does with it.
Speaker 1: For for all I know, Lois Learner's hard drive was
Speaker 1: ground into a fine dust, sprinkled like parmesan into a
Speaker 1: lasagna that.
Speaker 2: Was served to those in this very chamber. So I
Speaker 2: say to you, Congress, if you want to see all
Speaker 2: of Lewis Learner's emails, you must look inside yourselves, or
Speaker 2: or you.
Speaker 4: Could, or you can wait.
Speaker 2: By the way, that is a killer, that guy impression
Speaker 2: that I will use for the rest of my career.
Speaker 2: So up until now, the whole thing's annoying. But not
Speaker 2: quit galling. Here's where it gets someone galling.
Speaker 6: The irs has historically only preserved backup takes for six months.
Speaker 2: All right, the government agency whose entire business model relies
Speaker 2: on forcing Americans to live as borderline hoarders only keeps
Speaker 2: there her six months now, so that's unacceptable. You know,
Speaker 2: you'd never get a notice from the IRS saying please
Speaker 2: bring your records down to us if you can find them.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like if the EPA was dumping its
Speaker 2: office trash in the National Zoos spotted Owl exhibit, meaning
Speaker 2: it would be ironic. But even if the IRS deleted
Speaker 2: the tapes, why can't they just get the emails from
Speaker 2: her inbox? Spoiler alert, It's stupid and preventable. Each IRS
Speaker 2: employee's email box back then only held one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty megabytes of information, also known as five pictures of
Speaker 2: your family or one picture of Anthony.
Speaker 8: Wieners Boom boom, Yeah, he has a.
Speaker 2: Somewhat large penis one hundred and fifty megabytes. That's one
Speaker 2: percent of what Gmail offers you for free, and that
Speaker 2: comes with a Google Plus account for you to not use.
Speaker 4: The federal government.
Speaker 2: The federal government has built an entire complex in the
Speaker 2: deserts of Utah to store everything Americans have ever said
Speaker 2: to each other, but inter government conversations.
Speaker 8: I don't know, buy thumb drive.
Speaker 2: If there is a larger scandal here, it's that our
Speaker 2: government's handling of information across all plats borders on criminal idiocy.
Speaker 2: The irs is frying hard drives the VA's drowning in paper.
Speaker 2: Is there any record keeping medium that the government could.
Speaker 4: Use that could work for that?
Speaker 2: Microfiche will do it, Stone tablets will do it. We
Speaker 2: could take a page out of the ancient Greeks, weave
Speaker 2: all of our important information into an epic poem and
Speaker 2: recite entirely from memory passed down over generations as part
Speaker 2: of a federal archival oral tradition from barred to apprentice.
Speaker 2: But you probably lose that page. Unlet's wait a minute.
Speaker 2: I know what's going on here. You're tired of governing us,
Speaker 2: aren't you, and so you're kind of acting like assholes, so.
Speaker 8: We break up with you.
Speaker 2: Well, look, I know we're not perfect as constituents, and
Speaker 2: we've been in this relationship for two hundred years. Probably
Speaker 2: take you a little bit for granted. We want everything
Speaker 2: and don't want to pay for anything. Every year on
Speaker 2: your birthday we throw a huge party and pretend it's
Speaker 2: for you, but it's really just a chance for us
Speaker 2: to get up and stare at this guy between nine
Speaker 2: PM and nine twenty five. Look, the point is this government,
Speaker 2: no matter what you get right, we're still going to
Speaker 2: find that one thing you got wrong and sign a
Speaker 2: petition about it.
Speaker 4: That doesn't mean we don't need to.
Speaker 2: Baby want you to remember this. Just because we are
Speaker 2: totally unreasonable doesn't mean you have to be totally incompetent.
Speaker 2: It is clear that we've gotten many do it yourselfers
Speaker 2: and our audience from the email. So to show us
Speaker 2: how to fill out your very own tax form, I'm
Speaker 2: joined by our own mister money, Stephen Colbert Stephen, thank
Speaker 2: you for joining using tax Thank you.
Speaker 4: John, Oh, thank you.
Speaker 7: Like most Americans, I hate paying taxes, but I love
Speaker 7: my roads, my garbage pickup, and my federal prison system.
Speaker 4: Public education not so much.
Speaker 7: I homeschool, So you gotta pay your taxes, but oh
Speaker 7: they can be a little intimidating.
Speaker 4: I'm here to help.
Speaker 7: First thing you do is you got to get yourself
Speaker 7: a whole lot.
Speaker 4: Of well sharpened number two pencils.
Speaker 7: Get those ready, And this may take a while and
Speaker 7: you might get thirsty.
Speaker 4: So I recommend a Nuts brand Hazel Nuts soda.
Speaker 2: I actually enjoyed the pistachio.
Speaker 4: Nuts Nuts.
Speaker 7: Now question number one, name and address. I like to
Speaker 7: put a joke name down like Ivana Humpya or Ip
Speaker 7: Freely or Phil McCracken.
Speaker 4: The irs.
Speaker 7: Guys just love it. It brightens up their day and it
Speaker 7: gets them on your side. Okay, age, I put down
Speaker 7: seventeen Okay, that makes me a minor.
Speaker 4: Can't be tried as an adult.
Speaker 7: Okay, use that noodle. Now, dependence, this lowers your taxes.
Speaker 7: So I put down six wives and twenty one children.
Speaker 2: So you are a seventeen year old with twenty one children.
Speaker 7: Huh not me, John Ip Freely okay, income, I put
Speaker 7: down five million dollars.
Speaker 4: That shows them I'm a heavyweight. And then no, not
Speaker 4: to screw with me. Okay.
Speaker 7: Then at the bottom here where it says sign here,
Speaker 7: I don't okay, that's just gonna come back and bite
Speaker 7: you in the ass. There, tax is done.
Speaker 2: Wait, no, that's that's interesting. But perhaps there might be
Speaker 2: some viewers out there who don't want to lie on
Speaker 2: their tax returns. Do you have any tips for those viewers?
Speaker 4: Oh, smoky dope, all right. What you're gonna want to
Speaker 4: do is get one of.
Speaker 7: The resource books, okay, and then you want to go
Speaker 7: under section A and look under subsection countenance. Okay, find
Speaker 7: a name, follow the dotted line to the corresponding seven
Speaker 7: digit numerical code, and then you enter that code into
Speaker 7: your tax communicator.
Speaker 4: Okay, voila, tax is done.
Speaker 2: So wait, you just.
Speaker 4: You just call an accountant. A lot more to it
Speaker 4: than that, John.
Speaker 7: You see, you need to make sure that the person
Speaker 7: that helps you doesn't believe that Jesus was the only
Speaker 7: son of God, that Muhammad was a prophet, that Buddha
Speaker 7: was enlightened, or that vishnus So is thans the universe.
Speaker 2: So you mean just hire a Jewish account whoa whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 4: Whoa.
Speaker 7: I'd call that a bit of an ethnic stereotype, wouldn't you.
Speaker 7: I mean, are you just saying that Jews are good
Speaker 7: with money?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 7: But if you say so, folks, John says, go find
Speaker 7: yourself a Jew. That that sounds so that sounds so ugly.
Speaker 7: You know, I just don't get you, man, I've got
Speaker 7: this god this ugly taste in my mouth.
Speaker 2: Now nuts, thank you, Steven, Stephen Colbert. Everyone will be
Speaker 2: right back.
Speaker 5: I love America. It's the only country where you can
Speaker 5: get a burger and a liposuction at the same drive through.
Speaker 4: But that's all.
Speaker 5: Who's also lived all around the world. I feel a
Speaker 5: responsibility to let America know that a lot of the
Speaker 5: things it does are super weird to the rest of us.
Speaker 5: And one of those things is how America does money.
Speaker 5: It's tax season, which right off the bat is a
Speaker 5: sign that something is wrong, okay, because taxes shouldn't have
Speaker 5: a whole season. Seasons are supposed to be for exciting
Speaker 5: stuff like baseball season, or wedding season or season two
Speaker 5: of Bridgeston. I can't wait to see which British person
Speaker 5: is jeezuing on who this time. But America decided that
Speaker 5: filing taxes should be as quick and painless as getting
Speaker 5: a root canal at the DMB. I mean, you got
Speaker 5: your ten ninety nine, you got your Form ten forties,
Speaker 5: you got your schedule seeds, you got your R two
Speaker 5: D two's, you got your blink one eighty twos. You
Speaker 5: spend days trying to figure out what you owe the government,
Speaker 5: and then the government tells you if you're right, because
Speaker 5: apparently they knew the whole freaking time. It's like the
Speaker 5: world's most pointless game show. Aside from the price is right, obviously,
Speaker 5: because nobody should get a new car for knowing how
Speaker 5: much catch up costs. Look, I hate to break it
Speaker 5: to you, guys, but in a lot of other countries,
Speaker 5: the government does all that filing for you. Yeah, they
Speaker 5: do the math, they send you a statement, and if
Speaker 5: it looks good, you click okay, and then you're done.
Speaker 5: It's so easy a baby could do it. But they
Speaker 5: don't have to because they're lazy freeloaders who don't pay taxes.
Speaker 5: It's not just your income taxes. All taxes in America
Speaker 5: are weird. In a lot of other countries, you see
Speaker 5: a price on something and that's how much it costs,
Speaker 5: because that's the whole point of a goddamn price. But no,
Speaker 5: not in America. When you pay for something in America,
Speaker 5: they hate you with the surprise sales tax. They're basically
Speaker 5: capfishing you. I know that six hundred dollar TV looks good,
Speaker 5: but it's lying it's six fifty and it has a
Speaker 5: secret family. But don't get me wrong, taxes are filed
Speaker 5: from America's only insane money issue. Okay, I know you
Speaker 5: guys are used to it, but I need you to
Speaker 5: realize that the way you tip in this country is
Speaker 5: not normal everywhere else. A tar is a show of appreciation,
Speaker 5: not a goalfundme for someone who doesn't earn a living wage.
Speaker 5: A waiter's ability to pay rent shouldn't depend on how
Speaker 5: generous Becky feels after three martinis. And the real issue
Speaker 5: is how arbitrary you're tipping is You tip the guy
Speaker 5: who delivers your food, but not the guy who delivers
Speaker 5: your packages. And you tip the person who made your
Speaker 5: coffee but not the person who made your big mac.
Speaker 5: And don't even get me started on tip jaws. Okay,
Speaker 5: you don't have to put money in, but if you do,
Speaker 5: you gotta make a big show of it. I like
Speaker 5: to shoot my cash into the job like a basketball
Speaker 5: or shouting. He tips, he scores. If you bank it
Speaker 5: off the cashier, they usually notice. But as weird as
Speaker 5: taxes and tipping are in America, let's not forget about
Speaker 5: the actual money itself, because American physical currency sucks. I
Speaker 5: don't know if you know this, but in other countries,
Speaker 5: every denomination is a different size because it makes it
Speaker 5: easier to tell them apart, especially if you're blind. But
Speaker 5: apparently blind people don't need to use money in America
Speaker 5: because look at this shit, same exact size, all of it.
Speaker 5: You gotta look over each individual bill and figure out
Speaker 5: which slave owner the handover. And while we're talking about
Speaker 5: your strange money, who decided a pyramid if a freaking
Speaker 5: eye was a normal thing to put on the dollar? Hey,
Speaker 5: rule a thumb, America. If Nick Cage can make a
Speaker 5: movie about your money, you're doing it wrong. Not to
Speaker 5: mention the pennies, Like why do these still exist when
Speaker 5: everyone's just trying to get rid of them? Even convenience
Speaker 5: stores have that take a penny, leave a penny dish.
Speaker 5: It's like an animal shelter for unwanted money. Did you
Speaker 5: know that America actually loses money making pennies. If you're
Speaker 5: gonna have a hobby that loses you money, get a
Speaker 5: gambling addiction like a normal person. Okay, listen, your whole
Speaker 5: financial system is stupid and I hate it all right,
Speaker 5: the money, the tipping, the taxes. That's why I found
Speaker 5: a way to avoid dealing with it all together, all right.
Speaker 5: The secret is they can't tax you if they don't
Speaker 5: know you have it Oh so much easier robbing a
Speaker 5: bank in Europe.
Speaker 4: Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
Speaker 4: searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts. Watch
Speaker 4: The Daily Show weeknights at eleven ten Central on Comedy Central,
Speaker 4: and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has
Speaker 4: been a Comedy Central podcast now