Professor Schaff mentions the number of zombie farmers receiving federal payments.
$1.1 billion in subsidies to 172,801 dead people between 1999 through 2005. Forty percent of that money went to people who had been for at least three years, the report found.
I learn from World War Z that Zombie corpses are unusually durable, so three years is no problem. But colleagues memory is unreliable concerning an earlier conversation on the legal ramifications of death or pseudo-death in the case of two basic species of the undead. Professor Schaff says:
Prof. Blanchard and I once debated whether the undead have to pay the estate tax, aka, the death tax. I believe we concluded that vampires do not but zombies do. Vampires, depending on your vampire theory, are not actually dead (well they were, but they aren't; it gets confusing). Zombies, meanwhile, are clearly simply corpses that are animate (how they are animated is also a subject of some dispute, but perhaps Prof. Blanchard can educate us from the History of the Zombie Wars).
This apparently originated in a question from a student, but my conclusion was the opposite. Like zombies, vampires are human beings who died and then came back to life in some sense. But zombies are psychologically empty, retaining no trace of the former self. As to how they are reanimated, there are two primary vectors: some mysterious infection (WWZ), and black magic (see Jon's delicious Bob Hope clip; and one minor one: a mad scientist (Reanimator). In any case, I would argue that zombies no more retain any liabilities or rights from the time they were genuinely alive than does a kidney or tumor once removed from a living body. Strom Thurmond's last term in the Senate notwithstanding.
Vampires, by contrast, usually retain their living personalities intact and for that reason might be considered the same legal person for purposes of contracts or tax liabilities. I can document this argument with the case of George Hamilton's amusing Love At First Bite (1979). In that movie, Dracula is forced to leave his Romanian castle and come to America because he cannot pay the estate taxes. When Renfield (Arte Johnson) announces that government agents are at the castle door, Dracula asks how he knows they are from the government. Renfield replies: "they are wearing shoes."
So: the first thing to get straight concerning the farm subsides to dead farmers story, is this: are the farmers zombies, or vampires. If the former, then this is clearly a case of fraud (especially if someone is controlling the zombie by waving his wand and giving deep, clear commands like "Rise! Kill! Endorse the check!"). If the latter, then the farmer might well be entitled to the subsides. That is a matter for the courts to decide. I suggest night court.
I hope this has been useful to our readers, both living and living dead. But please remember, I am not an attorney.
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