Sunday, September 09, 2018

Upsetting thieves with truth

Unwanted


Years ago, long before I had a blog, I had a retail shop. I hated robbing my customers in the name of "sales tax", but if I didn't, armed goons would have come and murdered me. Insanity, I know!

But every time I wrote the check to the town's "tax" collector, on the memo line I wrote something like "sales 'tax' extortion for August". The "tax" collector called to question me about that-- or to whine-- a few different times. It drove her mad.

I wasn't rude to her, I simply said I didn't appreciate being recruited to rob my customers on her behalf-- that if she wanted to rob them she should go do it herself.

She would object, "but it isn't robbery, it's a tax!" Same thing, I'd tell her.

She would sputter, "but don't you want police and paved roads?" No, I really don't. There's nothing the stolen money buys that I want that bad. Can I stop robbing my customers now?

She actually showed up in person once, just to get me to stop writing that on the checks. Why did it even matter to her? I paid the extortion, but I never stopped editorializing on the memo line.
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This blog is my job.
YOU get to decide if I get paid.

5 comments:

  1. Kinda sounded like you disturbed her so much for intelligently messing with her previously unquestioned ideology that she possibly wanted you to do her. I mean, showing up at your house to complain about a throwaway line on a check? Stir up that cognitive dissonance by being, you know, correct ...

    I say that as someone whose fiancee holds distinctly different political views.

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    1. She wasn't my type, if that was her idea. LOL. And she may not have known I was living upstairs at the shop-- that wasn't "legal" so I didn't yap about it.

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  2. I've started doing something similar with my property taxes. Last time, they cashed an unsigned check. I wonder if I could get the bank to reverse it based on it not being signed? If I could do that, maybe the reversal wouldn't be linked to my account and so my account would show as paid while the money wouldn't actually be there?

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    1. Sounds like you're flirting with having your property sold at auction.

      Jim Henshaw

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    2. Not really. It's property tax on a car that isn't kept in the state that pretends it has authority to tax it. And it's only $40 / year so it's not like their books are going to be off by much.

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