Some people define themselves by their job, some by their hobbies, yet others by their family relationships. Josh Kornbluth and Richard Yancey are two very different men who can be defined, at least in part, by the Internal Revenue code.
Kornbluth is a West Coast writer/performer who, in his twenties, worked office jobs to pay the rent. At some point he dropped out of The System and, even though he temped for a tax attorney, didn't file tax returns for seven years.
Yancey spent those same years in Florida, and he too bounced around from job to job, trying to be a writer. He wound up -- until four months ago -- a revenue officer for the IRS, spending his days going after people like Kornbluth.
Tax dodger, meet tax collector.
Kornbluth was in Washington last week performing his monologue "Love and Taxes" at Arena Stage (through March 14). Yancey was in town promoting his new book, "Confessions of a Tax Collector" (HarperCollins). Here, in this edited transcript, they interview each other.
Kornbluth: Your book is really a story about becoming a grown-up.
Yancey: Yeah, a coming-of-age story. The IRS just happens to be where I come of age.
Kornbluth: I picked up on that right away because, in my show, we're actually telling a very similar story. Although we are, like, point-counterpoint, as we're being set up here. But as you describe yourself, you're pretty much a slacker. [Grins]
Yancey: Oh, yeah. I was a ne'er-do-well in the classic sense. If there was something to fail at, I could achieve that failure. By the time I got into the Service I was 28 and I didn't know what I was doing with my life. I didn't have a life, I didn't know what I was doing.
Kornbluth: You were the antithesis of what you were about to become. It's as if the car thief became the repo man.
So what was the job like?
