Something to brighten those tax time blues!

A bright, young, fresh-out-of-school auditor just joined the ATO, excited to begin tracking down high-powered offenders - such as the Mum & Dad-type Tea Tree Farmers, Pine Plantation or Film Investors.

Anxious for his first high-powered audit, he was a bit dismayed when his assignment was to audit a Rabbi. Looking over the books and taxes was pretty straight forward, and the Rabbi was clearly very frugal, so he thought he'd make his day interesting (just as the ATO had trained him to do) by having a little fun with the Rabbi.

"Rabbi," he said, "I noticed that you buy a lot of candles."
"Yes," answered the Rabbi.
"Well, Rabbi, what do you do with the candle drippings?" he asked.
"A good question," noted the Rabbi. "We actually save them up and when we have enough, we send them back to the candle maker. And every now and then, they send us a free box of candles."

"Oh," replied the auditor somewhat disappointed that his unusual question actually had a practical answer. So he thought (because the ATO had taught him never to accept a truthful answer) he'd go on, in his obnoxious way...

"Rabbi, what about all these matzo [for the gentiles matzo is unleavened bread, flat & dry ] purchases? What do you do with the crumbs from the matzo?"
"Ah, yes," replied the Rabbi calmly, "we actually collect up all the crumbs from the matzo and when we have enough, we send them in a box back to the manufacturer and every now and then, they send a box of matzo balls."

"Oh," replied the auditor, thinking hard how to fluster the Rabbi (because his ATO training taught him that the more unreasonable he got, the easier it would be to persecute the tax-payer.)

"Well, Rabbi," he went on, "what do you do with all the foreskins from the circumcisions?"
"Yes, here too, we do not waste," answered the Rabbi. "What we do is save up all the foreskins, and when we have enough we actually send them to the ATO!"

"The ATO?! " questioned the auditor in disbelief.

"Ahh, yes," replied the Rabbi, " the ATO - ..and about once a year, they send us a little prick like you."