From: AlanBaggett@volcanomail.com   
      
   2 Days from the Diary of one Mr. Samuel Marchbanks :CRA SOTW    
      
   Two Days from the Diary of Samuel Marchbanks :CRA SOTW    
      
   We did not want to waste a tax tale on the Christmas period when families are   
   gathering around their trees instead of their computers so this week's tax   
   tale is a time-tested tax favorite that will help tide us over to the New Year   
   when the Tax Tales    
   begin anew.    
      
   Robertson Davies wrote this in 1947 and regular readers here should get a   
   smile if not an outright laugh out from these two excerpts from 'Ten Days from   
   the Diary of Samuel Marchbanks'. Enjoy!    
      
   THURSDAY - Another note from the Income Tax People this morning.    
      
   A while ago they presented me with a bill for the whole of my 1941 tax   
   insisting that I had not paid it. By great good luck and contrary to my usual   
   unbusinesslike procedure, I had my receipts which I brandished angrily in   
   their faces. Gradually the    
   whole sordid story leaked out: they had taxed me both as Samuel Marchbanks and   
   as Fortunatus S. Marchbanks, in spite of the fact that nobody has called me   
   Fortunatus since 1897; having billed Sam they were out to skin Fortunatus, but   
   I am not quite such    
   a dual personality as that. When their error was pointed out to them, they did   
   not even apologize for their threat to take proceedings against me, but   
   managed to dig up an item of a few dollars which they said I ought to pay,   
   plus interest... The    
   churlishness of tax- gatherers is phenomenal. I wonder if there is a case on   
   record in which a private citizen has extracted an apology from a   
   tax-gatherer?    
      
   I wonder if their work makes them curmudgeons, or if curmudgeonliness is a   
   qualification for the job? I have received a stack of letters about this   
   affair, all written from the standpoint of a government official addressing a   
   hardened and evasive    
   criminal. The insolence of these herdsmen of The Golden Calf is past all   
   bearing.    
      
      
   TUESDAY - Every day I pass a beverage room in the course of my duties...   
   ...and at least every second day an habitue of the places pursues me for a   
   hundred yards or so, telling me in a low, compelling voice how badly he needs   
   twenty-five cents. I have given him money several times, chiefly from a fear   
   that he will fall dead    
   at my feet, if I refuse, but I am beginning to be indifferent to his fate.   
   What is more, an uncharitable suspicion dawns in my mind that he uses my money   
   to buy beer. Now, if he spends all his daily income, which is my twenty-five   
   cents, on drink, he is    
   obviously an improvident oaf, and the despair of economists, and the next time   
   he appears trembling and muttering at my side I shall tell him so. If he were   
   a TRUE Canadian he would spend five cents of my quarter on food and drink, he   
   would save five    
   cents and he would pay the other fifteen to the Income Tax and the Baby Bonus.   
   That is what I have to do. Why should he live a life of pleasure, spending his   
   whole income on drink, when I have to slave and pinch to keep him and several   
   thousand civil    
   servants in luxury? This is the sort of social injustice which makes   
   communists of white-collar workers like me.    
      
   Happy New Year!!   
      
      
   -----------------------------------------------------------    
   Miss a Tax Tale Miss a lot!    
   Pop the link below into your browser to view the entire CRA SOTW    
   Library!    
   http://canada.revenue.agency.angelfire.com    
   ------------------------------------------------------------    
   Alan Baggett - http://www.taxcollectorsbible.com/ - Tax Collector's Bible   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)