The artful way to choose tax effective schemes

Well it’s that time of year again.

I know the season’s changed when my dear old friends at the Venezuelan Yak Milk Yoghurt farm dust of their $20 gold leaf embossed prospectuses and send them off to me, marked my URGENT PERSONAL CONFIDENTIAL ATTENTION and addressed Nuk Brownring.

Well it’s that time of year again.

I know the season’s changed when my dear old friends at the Venezuelan Yak Milk Yoghurt farm dust of their $20 gold leaf embossed prospectuses and send them off to me, marked my URGENT PERSONAL CONFIDENTIAL ATTENTION and addressed Nuk Brownring.

It comes in a $3.00 Australia Post bubble wrap envelope with $4.00 of postage paid and the mongrels don’t even use stamps for my kids to collect.

These guys ought to know by now. I’m not interested in Yak Milk Yoghurt Farms. By crickey, that’s old stuff. The NEW money’s going into Budgie Wee.

Now I know you think I’m nuts, “Budgie wee?”. The therapeutic effects of budgie wee are legendary. When did you last see a budgie suffering from diabetes, arthritis or alzheimers disease?

Budgies always remember which way is up and where the little seed bell is.

How many budgies get caught drunk driving? Have you ever seen a cat after it eats a Budgie ? The eyes light up, it spends the rest of the day licking itself and then wanders out in front of a passing car in some kind of bird-induced “hypno trance”. This doesn’t happen when a cat eats a mouse or a goldfish or a tin of Whiskas. I notice these things…..

What’s the common ingredient ? Budgie wee. And how rare is it? We’re talking about measuring the entire world output in litres. Not tonnes of the stuff, litres.

Can you imagine what would happen if someone managed to genetically modify a budgie to produce a few litres from each Budgie per annum?

Apart from a very messy cage in the research lab and a law suit from General Motors, the GM Budgie sounds like some sort of small car, the return on investment would be enormous!

Next stage of the roll-out could be setting up budgie farms. Now we’re talking. Thousands of the little buggers, spurting here there and everywhere. Special collection conveyor belts gathering the “harvest” and passing it through some form of elaborate pasteurising process turning out refined budgie wee syrup the other end.

I can see the brand now, BudWeeSyr — In a silver can! Drink the stuff and you’ll never be the same again!

“Hey Maaaate — feel like a Bud?”

“Yeep Yeep!”

What’s the bet the Yanks have thought of it already ?

The cat effect would be great. You could sprinkle BudWeeSyr pellets on the ground where Cats wander. They have a sniff, the eyes light up, quick lick and out onto the road. Whammo!

BudWeeSyr on your cereal in the morning. Even if you suffered from arthritis, with that sprinkled on your Cornflakes by Hubby, you’re not likely to think about the arthritis for a while are you?

Now, you think I might be joking, but has anyone actually taken the time to have a look at some of these things we’re supposed to be recommending to our clients as we approached the end of the financial year?

I always thought Mother Nature had a pretty good way of working things out. You know, penguins in the chilly bits, fish in the water, ostriches in Africa.

So how come Australia’s suddenly become the last untouched frontier for olives? I always thought the Spaniards did a pretty good little trade in Olives?

I keep thinking that the sneering Spanish girl on the olive oil tin has crushed her fair share of olives with a hefty set of castanets. I reckon it’s a warning — mess with our olive oil market and we’ll send her ‘round. “Clickety Click Click” — Oooooh ! I’ve seen what they do to bulls over there. Trust me, don’t mess with the Spanish.

Then there’s the vineyards. Okay, maybe Margaret River is God’s little grapevine and there’s been the odd vineyard that’s done alright but some of them seem pretty amazing and the French are out there, watching.

Think I’m joking? The New Zullanders will tell you. The Rainbow Warrior was a fund manager junket cruise, promoting “Tex Effuctuve” vineyard schemes to major New Zulland dealers.

Little known but true fact, Murarroa Attol was actually the first South Pacific Vineyard specialising in sparkling wines. Just weeks from the first vintage, the French offered assistance, “we ken put zee zip in your wines oui?”

Apart from the sabotage, there are few suspect operators out there working in Australia too. There’s one place I’ve seen that looked like the Goby desert until a year ago. You’d be doing well to grow hair there let alone being in the “lush agricultural region, destined to become the bread-basket of the solar system” — or words to that effect.

The local hardware store must have run out of green paint. The stuff has been sprayed all over the sand. The last rain they saw was stuck on the back of a horse.

Then we’ve got the film schemes. How come I never got to see the prospectus for “Star Wars I — The Phantom menace”. What about “Titanic”, where’s the prospectus for that? I only seem to get the prospectuses for films like “Kippo, the one legged dog”.

“See how Kippo lost his three legs. Follow the trials of a dog who struggles to keep his chin up in the face of adversity. Follow Kippo as he makes his way in the big city with his new found animal friends.” Starring “Kippo the wonder dog” and Tony Ryder, star of numerous television shows and features films.”

Keep his chin up! I just want know how a one legged dog does anything! Who is this Tony Ryder, why have I never heard of him? Then I’m invited to invest in a feature documentary, “The Making of Kippo”

I don’t know people. I reckon I’m gonna be careful here. Stick with the stuff you know all about. Don’t risk your client’s funds with dodgy schemes. Go for the budgies. At least if that fails, you’ve got something to keep the kids amused with.

Disclaimer: The author owns two budgies and applications may only be made on the prospectus, yep printed on Elk Dung Paper- gotta help out our Norwegian counterparts - lodged with those that will get all the phone calls some day and dated three days before the end of the financial year. Yeep Yeep!