Dear Dr. Boli: I just got a letter from the IRS saying my check is in the mail. Well, why should I believe that from them? They never believe it from me. —Sincerely, Alfred Piscator, Professional Tax Dodger.

Dear Sir: The Internal Revenue Service has a reputation for humorless and dogged enforcement of the tax code. But IRS employees are as human as the rest of us, and they would like us to think of them that way. They are sending these little jokes to you in the mail every once in a while to let you see the humorous, one might almost say puckish, side of the IRS.