Bribe, you say? Oh, no, that was a gift!

Before I gather up my W-2s, 1099s, WD-40s and whatnot for my yearly tête-à-tête with TurboTax, I like to fortify myself by taking a stroll through the news for stories about corporate miscreants getting caught in flagrante deducto.

It’s petty of me, I know. But when I’m about to render unto Caesar, I feel better knowing that at least a few of the cheats and bamboozlers among us are undergoing a good rending themselves.

This tax season did not disappoint. According to The Washington Post, we’re in the midst of a festive crackdown on folks who violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.

Essentially, the law says you’re not allowed to bribe people in foreign countries in order to do business there.

Shazam, huh? But some people, it appears, have a little trouble grasping the concept. (Perhaps Turbo should add a prompt: “Did you purchase or otherwise assume possession of a foreign dignitary in 2010?”)

According to The Post, the Justice Department took 48 enforcement actions last year under the FCPA, up from two in 2004. And the Securities and Exchange Commission took 26 cases, up from three in 2003.

The feds reportedly have more than 150 criminal investigations under way.

Among the businesses currently fending off charges is IBM, which allegedly gave shopping bags filled with cash to the South Korean government to try to score computer contracts.

Dick Cheney’s old company, Halliburton, is accused of shuffling illegal payments through banks in Switzerland and Monaco to win construction jobs in Nigeria, according to The Post.

Transocean — of Deepwater Horizon infamy — is accused of bribing officials in Nigeria to forge documents to get around restrictions on how long the company can operate there.

And my personal favorite: “A middleman for a middleman” for the Italian energy company ENI allegedly made multiple trips to a Nigerian hotel room to shuttle briefcases filled with U.S. currency to a government muckety-muck.

But, The Post reported, delivering the balance of the bribes in local currency proved a bit tricky. The wads of bills were so bulky that the middleman’s middleman had to transport them by the carload. (I wonder: Is that mileage tax-deductible?)

Then there’s Libya. In 2009, according to The New York Times, thugs working for Col. Moammar Gadhafi called together 15 executives from energy companies working in oil fields there. (By the way, isn’t it curious that crazy old Mo-mo hasn’t risen above the rank of colonel in all these years?)

Gadhafi’s middlemen tried to shake down the executives to help pay the $1.5 billion settlement owed to the families of the victims of his many terrorist attacks, including the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Most of the execs — their gag reflexes still in working order — turned down the request, according to a State Department summary of the meeting obtained by The Times. But some, including representatives of U.S. companies, appeared willing to entertain talk of a deal, the documents indicated.

Let’s hope we get around to setting up a no-fly zone around those folks soon, eh?

Not surprisingly, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act isn’t wildly popular among some denizens of corporate America. They say it puts them at a disadvantage.

The Post reported that Diebold, the manufacturer of ATMs and — until a few years ago — electronic voting machines, stated in a recent regulatory filing that “strict compliance with anti-bribery laws may conflict with local customs and practices.”

Foreign companies that are not beholden to U.S. law regarding bribes can engage in such activities, which — Diebold noted — has “a significant adverse impact on our ability to compete for business in such countries.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m going weepy here. Perhaps Turbo should add a prompt: “Did you make any purchases in 2010 that contained the hidden costs of U.S. companies bribing foreign potentates?”

I wouldn’t mind rendering a deduction for that.

Daryl Lease is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. Email: daryl.lease@pilotonline.com.