"GETS HIS GOAT"

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 16, 20 October 1942, Page 5

"GETS HIS GOAT"

INCOME TAX DEMANDS

"PAY IT WITH MUSIC"

Harassed payers of income tax will appreciate the following question and answer culled by a correspondent from a recent issue of "Punch": — Question: Since receiving his income tax demand my father, a retired sugar broker, has been behaving rather oddly, writing letters to the papers under the pseudonyms "Late Colonel R.A.F." atnd "Two Working Mothers" —always a sign of despondency with him —and reading aloud things like Walt Whit"1 should like to go and live with the animals." I have tried to coax him to thin the onions or begin a little bedding-out, and the vicar lias added his mite, but to no purpose. He says it is the curt impersonality of the whole technique that gets his goat (as he puts it). Could you suggest any line of argument might try?'—(Miss) E.< G . Spencer-Cardigan. Answer: Like other warm-hearted taxpayers, your father is repelled by the apparent indifference of the Inland Revenue authorities to his sacrifices, an impression which a more direct personal appeal on their part could, at once remove. You might assume Mir S-C. that the bringing together of the taxpayer and the taxgatherer will be no small part of our post-war reconstruction effort. Demands, I am told, will be more in the nature of greetings, telegram, while eaeli township will hold its "Income Tax Week," a festive season during which, to the strains 1 of a military band swinging "Pay It With Music," even the most grudging will be won over to submit their dues cheerfully when they see that they are to receive Sir King-sley Wood's personal signature in receipt. Another suggestion is that the authorities may organise some recognisable insignia ol reward on the lines of Army decoration —e.g., badges to be worn on the lapel by those whose returns reach a certain figure, armlets for those who have never put the Inland Revenue personnel to the inconvenience of a final appeal, wild so on. By this means it would be no uncommon thing to find men with limited incomes, like your father, deliberately falsifying their returns in an attempt to get into the supertax class.