So last week I went to Manhattan with my daughter Kaitlyn.  That involves a lot of walking.  We stayed at the Sheraton in Weehawken NJ, where Alexander Hamilton fell in a duel with Aaron Burr, and took the ferry in the evening and then the morning. Using the twenty block to a mile formula we did about five miles downtown/uptown.  I don’t know the formula for crosstown, but I suspect there was another mile or so thrown in.

We had met up with family for lunch at the iconic Tock Diner in Clifton which features in Sammy Juliano’s Irish Jesus of Fairview.

After we checked into the hotel we took the ferry into Manhattan.  Kaitlyn had her heart set on visiting Stonewall, which is now officially recognized as a national historic site.  The woman behind the bar filled us in a bit on the history and we bought T-shirts.  If we had had a National Parks passport book we could have gotten it stamped.  No kidding,

We next headed for the White Horse Tavern where Dylan Thomas had his last drink.  His last thirty two drinks actually. Kaitlyn was less impressed.  The high point of the trip was approaching.  Kaitlyn wanted to visit McSorley’s, the oldest bar in New York City, because I had talked about it so much.  Here is the thing about walking in Manhattan.  A large portion of Manhattan is a convenient grid with avenues running north/south (uptown/downtown) and street running east west (crosstown).  Pretty much everything meets at right angles and almost all the streets are numbered.  Broadway confuses things a bit not being parallel with the avenues.

When you are below fourteenth street, it kind of all falls apart.  So figuring out how to get to McSorley’s was a little tricky.  We ended up at Washington Square and that is where we hit literary gold.

We met Peter Chinman @theparkpoet. He is originally from Boston and now lives in Brooklyn.  He has a degree in Philosophy.  Both his parents are lawyers and they are OK with the different drummer he is marching to.  He told me that he actually makes a living.  Anyway he charges $1.00 to $100.00 for a poem. I decided to go with $20. For inspiration I used the T-Shirt I was wearing.

The T-Shirt reads Reilly’s Laws of Tax Planning – Prime Directive – If you don’t have documentation, at least have a plausible story.

That is my restatement of the famous Cohan rule.  Last year I convinced Lew Taishoff to cover the Bureau of Tax Appeals decision in the case of George M Cohan as if it were a contemporary Tax Court decision.  Here is how that went.  The appeal of the BTA decision to the Second Circuit led to the enunciation of the famous rule by Learned Hand.

Absolute certainty in such matters is usually impossible and is not necessary; the Board should make as close an approximation as it can, bearing heavily if it chooses upon the taxpayer whose inexactitude is of his own making.

Neither of the other Peter’s attorney parents were tax attorneys which accounts for his unfamiliarity with the Cohan rule.  He was not even aware of George M Cohan whose statute stands roughly two miles from Washington Square.

The t-shirt is photoshopped. Anyway I brought him up to speed as quickly as I could.  Here is the poem.  Other Peter did not title it. I am dubbing it Meditation On The Cohan Rule.

Kept no proof. the papers you misplaced

there was no trace of you

after you left, except

the scar in all mysteries

committing acts of plot surgery

tax evasion, for years I avoided paying

my share, the skeletons knuckles knocking

at the door, eventually they come

for us all because when they do you

better get your story straight, kid

get your ducks lined up.

Other Peter actually had some literary tax exposure. He read the Pale King by David Foster Wallace, which I have mentioned on this platform.  After that McSorley’s was anticlimactic.  On the way back we grabbed a cab out of concern that we would miss the last ferry.

Next day we stayed in the grid section of Manhattan walking from the ferry to Central Park and then down to my high school on West 16th Street. Our literary treat was walking by the Chelsea Hotel.

I was struck by the intimations of mortality that Other Peter inserts in the Meditation Of The Cohan Rule.  And it made me think of Dylan Thomas who told his father to not go gentle into that good night, but rather to rage against the dying of the light.  By the way this is the second poem that I have commissioned.  Here is the first along with the backstory.

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For great value continuing professional education.  I recommend the Boston Tax Institute

You can register on-line or reach them by phone (561) 268-2269 or email vc@bostontaxinstitute.com.  Mention Your Tax Matters Partner if you contact them.

For articles oriented toward tax professionals check out Think Outside The Tax Box.