Certain whaling captains may be able to claim a charitable deduction for whale hunting expenses.
It's true! I saw it in my schedule A & B tax instructions.
I love tax time.
Update: This is the first year I get to deduct state and local sales tax. (We don't have a state income tax.) Mysteriously, in order to compute this, I first find my state tax rate, then my local tax rate, then divide the first by the second, and then multiply that quotient by the state tax rate. Then I add that number to my local tax rate. Write that out algebraically if you didn't follow it: I divided two tax rates that should be added, for no reason at all, then undid the division and added them like I should have in the first place. I'm sure this worksheet makes sense to somebody, somewhere.
Update, again: Turns out a line that specified "enter your state general sales taxes" meant an estimated amount of taxes paid pulled from a chart, not the sales tax rate. This only became apparent later on when I was attempting to add the taxes paid on a used car purchase -- to a tax rate, rather than an amount of taxes. Oh.
