TAXES

Ochako slurped a shot of espresso and scrawled on a tax form. Her hand blurred across the page. Jiro tipped one of the espresso cups upside down. The espresso inside sagged downward, then came off the cup with a loud squelching sound.

"I'm pretty sure this stuff isn't good for you. The espresso thicker than death probably isn't helping either."

"You know what else isn't good for me?" Ochako asked, her words nearly blurring together into incoherence. "Bankruptcy! Fraud! Inprisonment! It all must be perfect, or I'll have to give rides at an amusement park to pay off the crippling fines."

"It's just taxes," Mina said. "How bad can it be?" She picked up one of the forms and blanched. "There's taxes on paying taxes, calculated using limit functions? Bank interest taxes compounding on lunar cycles, tax credits for grades in hero school, and proof of religion for exemption on tithed income?"

Ochako zipped over to the blackboard, filled with lines of mathematical jargon. She pointed a sextant at the sky, noted the angle of the sun, and computed that against the donations to a wildlife relief fund to determine her tax bracket adjustment elegibility quotient.

"Carry the five, donate an extra hundred dollars, then remove a thousand from air quality taxes, then file exemptions for every meal as a business expense, clothes as work uniforms, and there! That's five thousand yen in savings!"

Momo came over and eyed the tax forms. "Oh, you're doing taxes? Want to watch mine? I was just about to let the accountants out."

Ochako blinked for the first time in weeks. "Accountants?"

Momo led them to the school grounds. Rows of kennels were lined up. Accountants in three piece suits, wearing spectacles and brandishing calculators, snapped and snarled against the bars. A tax collector nervously walked up, holding a document, and said, "Miss Yaoyorozu, there's been a slight discrepancy-"

Momo pressed a button. The kennel doors flung open. Howls filled the air as the accountants charged forward. The tax collector yipped and scurried off like a fox, darting across U.A.'s plush lawn. Within seconds, the accountants ran him down. One got their teeth around his neck and shook him like a rag, and two others pulled his arms apart. Money flew out in massive wads. The other accountants all took out sacks and shoved the money inside.

Another accountant rummaged through Ochako's piles. He plucked a single page from the file and said, "You filed your dependency claims under the wrong astrology sign. For the twelve yen discrepancy, you are hereby sentenced to-"

Momo snapped her fingers. The accountants all ran down the accountant and tore the tax files to shreds. They strung the accountant by his ankles and swung golf clubs at him until money fell out."

Momo handed her a wad of cash. "Here's your tax returns."

"Oh my gosh, thanks!"

Momo took the money back and left a single bill. "And those are the accountant fees."

"...thanks."

498

IRS: we already know how much you owe us

me: so you don't need me to file my taxes, right?

IRS: lol, get rekt poor idiot. Here's twenty pages of legal jargon and a math test. One wrong answer and jail.

Rich guy: you may have this hundred dollar bill I blew my nose with

IRS: thank you sir, most generous of you, please don't sick the lawyers on us