Americans across the country are engaged in the painful process of filing taxes. Many people are looking for fresh ways to reduce their liability. For example, the rap music community is maximizing tax refunds through the time-honored tradition of making it rain in the club. And this game-changing initiative is being pioneered by the lowest rung of the hip-hop hierarchy: The weed carriers.
TMZ scored exclusives with three such middling rhyme-spitters:
Bizzy Bone tells TMZ, "I'm giving charity to females who need their light bills paid. So, of course, that's a write-off. You write off your kids, don't you?"
The Game tells TMZ ... making it rain "is good for business and promotion that comes with the lifestyle of a rapper. They bump our music in a strip club, so me giving the girls a little bit of change to shake their ass -- that comes with the business. Everybody wins."
Daz Dillinger tells us, "Hell yeah. I'm going to see about getting my taxes fixed as soon as possible."
The legality of writing off dollar bills exchanged between consenting adults, even if one of those consenting adults is barely legal, isn't exactly clear. But you can see where the weed carriers are coming from. Without the income from a lauded discography or steady (theatrical) bookings, weed carriers have been forced to find creative ways to pay for a variety of expenses, including baby mama drama.
Indeed, baby mama drama has ensnared MCs since the inception of the hip-hop genre in the late 1970s. And it's expensive. No matter how many records are sold, no matter how many awards are earned, paying child support has forced rappers to come out of retirement, risking respect for dollars. Delinquent payments have even landed some rappers in jail.
And with marginal tax rates for high incomes rising with the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts, rappers now have to balance these payments with higher taxes. Another day in the life of the Obama economy.