Tax Guru – Ker$tetter Letter

What Would You Do For Money?

With the recent Survivor and Big Brother shows, as well as other even more disgusting ones popping up all the time, it has become a standard question as to what a person would do for money. The real question isn’t what you would do, but what is your price for doing unpleasant things.

This story of a guy whose dog, Zipper, ate the the $55 from his office football pool (two $20s, three $5s) seems at first blush to be ridiculous. This person, Jon Payton, has been following Zipper around and recovering the money from his droppings.

I assume most of us wouldn’t stoop so low for a few bucks and would simply chalk this up to learning to keep things more securely away from the dog. However, I started thinking. What if the bills were much larger ($100s)? What if the dog had swallowed a million dollar bearer bond? Is there an amount of money where sifting through dog poop makes sense? It’s an extreme example of the ages old question of whether it’s worth bending over to pick up a penny you find on the ground. I’m sure the dog poop amount would be different for each person.

KMK