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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.
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 ...
ReplyDeleteI say that as someone whose fiancee holds distinctly different political views.
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.
DeleteI'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?
ReplyDeleteSounds like you're flirting with having your property sold at auction.
DeleteJim Henshaw
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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