Horary 0026: Will I Get in Trouble With the IRS?
Overview
The querent had received a refund of a significant sum and wanted to know whether they would get into any legal or tax trouble if they did not report it to the Internal Revenue Service.
I am fully prepared to refund an unethical question without answering it. However, it is my practice to always check the chart first, just to see what it says. If I can answer a question about an unwholesome decision with a firmly ethical answer from the cosmos, that’s a lot better than me just moralizing to them personally.
I am never disappointed by the chart in such a matter, and this case is no exception.
Judgment
The querent is signified by Venus, ruler of the ascendant. I delineated Venus’ position in the 7th house of endings as the querent considering taking this action of not reporting the income. I noted Venus’ recent separation from the North Node — a significator of enlargement — in the 8th sign from the ascendant and near the 8th house cusp of “other people’s money” as signifying them having recently received this money.
I assigned Mars, ruler of the 2nd house, to the querent’s money. I noted that Mars was approaching the end of its sign and would soon enter Cancer, a major loss in dignity. It would also then be in the domain of the Moon.
The Moon is generally also assigned to the querent when available, but not when a house cusp we need for the judgment is in Cancer. In this case, with the MC in Cancer, the Moon must signify the government.
The Moon (the government) is also in the 7th house but more angular than Venus (the querent), and it is in the sign of Aries, meaning it has affinity for Mars. The government wants the querent’s money.
The Moon’s next aspect is with Mars; the government will get the money.
I informed the querent to this effect.
Outcome
After a few months, the querent wrote back that this judgment “lit a fire under” them to figure this situation out, which I find to be a charming signification of the Aries Moon.
The querent updated their taxes to include this windfall, and information revealed in the process showed that “the government definitely knew about the refunds and at some point would have come to collect.”
Analysis
In my training, I was warned so often and so well by teachers both in print and in class that I would receive ethically problematic horary questions. This is not my first one, though it is the first a querent has permitted me to write up. Each time I receive such a question, my first impulse is to reject it out of hand, refund the querent, and wash my hands of it.
But of course I have to cast the chart first and take a peek, right?
Each time, without fail, the chart has given not just a clear answer but the right answer, one I feel no compunction at all about sharing with the querent. On the contrary, I feel better about it, since there’s no judgment coming from me; I’m simply relaying the judgment of the Heavens on the matter.
My gratitude to the Heavens as an honorable judge knows no bounds.
