State-Sanctioned Tax Beatings Bring in $800 Million Windfall For NJ

NJ residents hoping to avoid "Tase for Taxes"

New Jersey officials have expressed surprise at the amount of past-due taxes being collected by gangs of teens, out-of-work bouncers and senior citizens armed with Tasers.

The collection program, dubbed “Tase for Taxes,” has brought in so much money - more than $800 million so far - that legislators are hastily adding pet projects back in the state budget that already includes a museum documenting the rise of malls in New Jersey and a bridge connecting Trenton to Atlantic City.

Gov. Jon Corzine said he came up with the idea while watching reruns of The Sopranos with Senate President Richard Codey. The two, who had been discussing ways to collect billions in unpaid state taxes, settled on recruiting under-employed segments of the community.

“With unemployment running much higher among disaffected youth, crotchety old people and beefy guys with felony records, we decided to tackle two problems at once,” Codey said. “It really is a win-win situation all around. Except for those who didn’t pay their taxes.”

Tax “collectors” receive 1 percent of whatever they bring in, although some said they were doing it for the sheer joy of a job well done.

“I haven’t had this much fun since 1978 when I hogtied that rat bastard neighborhood kid Donnie upside down in a tree for trampling through my flower bed,” 85-year-old Melvin Dobb said. “In fact, I think I may have tased him as part of this cockamamie tax program. Damn fool wet his pants, just like before. Where’s my Metamucil?”

One particularly industrious group of teens from Jersey City who took a bus to Morris County collected $850,000 from tax cheats in less than a week. “Our success was all about a good work ethic,” said one 18-year-old member of the gang. “Well, that and the threat of having 20 teenagers high on meth go ape shit on them.”