From: AlanBaggett@volcanomail.com   
      
   2 Days from the Diary of Samuel Marchbanks :CRA SOTW   
      
      
   2 Days from the Diary of one Mr. Samuel Marchbanks   
      
      
   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 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.   
      
      
   Have a Happy New Year!!    
      
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   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)