Time Magazine reports that a Pennsylvania architect is using social media tech to stay a step ahead of the tax man. Andrew Jarvis probably never thought that his Instagram selfies would land him in the news, but his idea was a brilliant one, and we hope he gets plenty of recognition for his business as a result.

You see, Jarvis lives in Pennsylvania. But he opened up an architecture office in New York. According to tax laws, of Jarvis spends half or more of his time in New York, he has to pay taxes as a New York resident. But Jarvis maintains that he lives more than half of the time back in Philadelphia.

The problem? How to prove that. Jarvis was concerned that, in the event of an audit, the tax man would rule against him.

Jarvis hit on the idea of taking a selfie every day he was in Philadelphia in front of his home. Some days he was holding a snow shovel. Others a copy that day’s Philadelphia Enquirer. Every time he did it, the pic was time stamped.

Sometimes he took pics in other locations too, just to cover his tail in other ways.

“I hate to admit this but I sometimes take pictures of myself pumping gas [to prove I’m the one using the credit card at that location],” Jarvis said. “I would have liked to have smiled in a few of the pictures had I known people were going to be looking at them.”

Then his daughter, Anne, considerably more tech savvy than Dad, saw the series of photos going back months on his camera. She got a kick out of them and asked to post them to Instagram. Jarvis did not know what Instagram was.

But soon Internal Revenue Selfies was born.

“No one was ever meant to see these, these were for his future imaginary conversation he might have hypothetically with the IRS,” Anne said. “And seeing that no one was supposed to see them made me want to show the world. What’s so funny is how deadpan he is. He has such an earnest nature. I know where all of this is coming from is he’s just through and through an honest stand-up guy and this is a manifestation of that.”

Image via Instagram