It’s that time of year when they offer tax filing tidbits, and here’s one I thought was pretty interesting: debt reduction. Turns out, if you’re in the hole, debt-wise (you know, like, you’ve been laid off or hit by medical bills or that big balloon payment came due), and managed to get your credit card company or somebody else to whom you owe money to forgive part of the debt, the amount that was written off is taxable income, so you’ve got to declare it.

At the same time, the credit card company gets to write that same amount off as a loss. Now, let’s review:

You struggle to make minimum payments for a few years, paying thousands in interest and barely touching the principal. If you’re “lucky,” after making back two or three (or corporate Jesus know how many) times what they loaned you in the first place, they “forgive” what’s left that you owe, and you have to add that amount as taxable income, while the corporate pirates brave captains of industry that made money off your misfortune get a tax write-off. Sounds fair to me.

No word yet on whether taxpayer bailout money counts as corporate income. My guess? Not so much.

Makes you want to jump into a pen full of polar bears.