Sitcom Tax: Audit or odd-ity, Sitcom characters get investigated by the IRS

For decades, Hollywood has been capitalizing on our fear of audits to provide fuel for sitcomedy. Of course, to make the story lines work, Hollywood has to bend the truth…just a little.

In That Girl, from the 60s, Ann Marie is a struggling actress and model. When she gets audited, the outcome is not looking good. Though she's barely making a living, the audit reveals that she owes the IRS a bundle. As hope wanes, her boyfriend, Donald saves the day. He figures out that because Ann's career depends heavily on her appearance, her entire wardrobe should be tax deductible. Cool! Evidently it passes sitcom tax law, because Ann is thus rescued from her income tax fate.

In Eight is Enough, when the dad learns he is about to be audited, he realizes that he has not saved any receipts. So he sends his kids off on a mad hunt for those precious bits of paper… any receipts at all, without regard to type and without mentioning that the audit surely would not be for the current year. "Just find receipts," he says. Hmmm. The end result of the search is that only one receipt is found - twenty cents spent to buy Band Aids. I don't remember the rest of the story, but, even though I wasn't yet an accountant when I watched the show, I knew it didn't make much sense, even for Hollywood.

In Mary Tyler Moore, Uncle Sam wants to look at Mary's finances. Unlike other sitcom characters, Mary has impeccable records. She even has one receipt for a popsicle, written on the popsicle stick by the ice cream man. It's hard to imagine why she felt the receipt was necessary, since, last time I checked, there is no line item on the tax return for frozen treats, and even if there was… how much tax did that deduction save her? But that misses the main point of the show. It's really all about the auditor, who comes to her apartment to do the examination. He becomes smitten with her, but is too shy to ask her for a date. Instead, he just keeps dragging out the audit, returning night after night until Mary figures it out. It's an odd scenario, but I guess if nothing else, it proves that IRS agents are people too. In another MTM episode, the blowhard anchorman, Ted Baxter, boasts of the enormous refund he's getting, thanks to the clever manipulations of his tax preparer. Strangely enough, that return gets audited (just a few weeks after the original filing) and he ends up owing a lot of money.

That's pretty far-fetched. But like most accountants and tax preparers, I've heard worse.
Many other sitcoms have done unlikely audit stories, including Dick Van Dyke, The Nanny, Third Rock from the Sun, All in the Family, Reba… even The Simpsons has an audit story. In almost every case, they get it wrong, wrong, wrong. But then, when the choice is between reality and ratings, ratings wins it most every time.

By Teresa Ambord

Other stories in this series:

Sitcom Tax: Everything I need to know about income tax I learned watching TV

Sitcom Tax: Jack Benny vs. the IRS

Sitcom Tax: George and Gracie whip taxes

Sitcom Tax: A round-up of tax information courtesy of Hollywood

Sitcom Tax: On April 15th Dagwood gives the mailman a bum’s rush