From: AlanBaggett@volcanomail.com   
      
   2 Days from the Diary of one Mr. Samuel Marchbanks :CRA SOTW   
      
   Robertson Davies wrote the following 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.   
      
      
   -----------------------------------------------------------    
   Miss a Tax Tale Miss a lot!    
   Visit the CRA SOTW Library at http://canada.revenue.agency.angelfire.com    
   ------------------------------------------------------------    
   Alan Baggett – Tax Collector’s Bible -  http://taxcollectorsbible.com/     
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)