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COPY OF A LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN IN MELBOURNE
AFTER RECEIVING A FINAL INCOME TAX DEMAND
Dear Sirs,
Your superheated letter arrived this morning in an open envelope with a five-penny stamp on it, and it would have given the boy and myself much pleasure had it not revived in us certain melancholy reflections of what has passed before.
You say you thought the account could've been settled long ago and you could not understand why it hadn't been. Well, here is the reason.
In nineteen-sixty-four I bought a sawmill on credit.
In nineteen-sixty-five I bought a team of horses, a timber wagon, two ponies, a terrier, a double shotgun and two razor-backed pigs, all on credit.
In nineteen-sixty-six the bloody mill was burnt to the ground leaving not one solitary thing. One of the ponies died and I lent the other to some stupid bastard who starved the poor bugger to death. Then I joined the church.
In 'sixty-seven my father died and my brother was strung up for raping a pensioner. A tramp seduced my daughter and I had to pay the bastard seventy quid to stop him becoming one of my relatives.
In 'sixty-eight my lad contracted mumps which spread to his balls and the poor boy had to be castrated to save his life. Later, we all went fishing and the rotten boat overturned, drowning two of my lads, neither being the castrated one.
In late 'sixty-nine my missus ran away with a sheep shearer and left me with twins as a souvenir. Then it was necessary to have a housekeeper, so I married her to keep my expenses down, but it was a hell of a job getting her pregnant.
I consulted the doctor and he advised me to create some sort of excitement at the crucial moment. So, that night I took my shotgun to bed with me and, at the time I guessed was right, I leaned out of bed and fired the gun through the window. As a result, the wife shit the bed, I ruptured myself and the next morning I found I'd shot my best cow.
In nineteen-seventy someone cut the nuts off my prize bull. I was really buggered, so I took to drink. I carried on until all I had left was my pocket watch and a weak bladder. Winding the watch and running for a piss kept me very busy for some time.
After a year I took heart again and I bought a manure spreader, a reaper, a tractor and a car, all on credit as usual. The floods came and washed the bloody lot away. My wife caught VD from a travelling salesman and my boy died through wiping his arse on a possum skin that was infected. To cap it all some useless bastard mated my cow with a broken down old bull.
It surprises me to see in your missive that there will be trouble if I fail to pay up. Trouble! If you can think of anything I've missed, I'd love to know about it.
Sirs; trying to get money out of me will be like trying to poke butter up a porcupine's pisser with a red hot needle.
I am praying that a shower of skunk shit will pass your way and I hope the centre of it is over you and the bunch of useless bastards in your office who sent me this final demand.
Yours for more credit.
CHRISTOPHER C. COLLCUTT
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[Based on a genuine reply from the Inland Revenue, and added-to, amended and fumbled-with to make the anagram work!]
Dear Mr Babbing,
I am writing to express our thanks for your prompt reply to our last communication, and to answer some of the added points you raised. I will address them, as always, in order.
Firstly, Mr Babbing, we must take issue with your description of our last as a "damned begging letter". It might perhaps more properly be referred to as a "tax demand". This is how we, here at the Inland Revenue, have always, for reasons of accuracy, traditionally referred to such documents.
And secondly, your frustration at our adding to the "endless stream of crapulent whining and panhandling vomited daily through the letterbox on to the doormat" has been noted. However, whilst we have not seen the other letters to which you refer we would prudently suggest that their being from "pauper councils, pirate banking houses and pissant gas-mongerers" might indicate that your decision to "stuff them next to the toilet in case of emergency" is, at best, a tad ill-advised. In common with my own organisation, it's unlikely that the senders of these letters do see you as a "lackwit bumpkin" or, indeed, a "sodding charity". More likely they see you as a human citizen of Great Britain, with an added responsibility to contribute to the safe upkeep of the nation as a whole.
Which brings me to my next point. Whilst there may be a whit of truth in your adamant assertion that the taxes you pay "go to shore up the canker-blighted, toppling folly that is the Public Services", a moment's rudimentary reckoning ought to disabuse you of the notion that the government in any way expects you to "stump up for the whole damned party" yourself. And the estimates you provided for the Chancellor's disbursement of the funds levied by taxation, whilst inventive, are, in fairness, a bit off the mark. Less than you imagine is spent on "junkets for Bunterish lickspittles" and "dancing whores" whilst far more than you have accounted for is distributed to, for example, "that box-ticking facade of a university system."
And, a couple of added technical points in answer to direct queries:
1.The reason we don't simply write "Muggins" instead of "Mr Babbing" on the envelope has to do with the vagaries of the postal system:
2.You can be assured that "sucking the very marrow from those with nothing left to give" has never been deemed normal practice because, even if the Personal Tax Allowance didn't render it irrelevant, the sheer medical logistics involved would make it financially unviable.
We hope this has helped and, in the meantime (whilst we would not in any way wish to influence your decision one way or the other, Mr Babbing) we ought to point out that even if you did choose to "give the whole frigging jamboree up and go and live in India" you would still owe us the money. Please send it by Friday.
Yours sincerely,
ABDUL Z. WADDA- AL- NAWAB.
Head Manager, Customer Relations.
(Bad Debt Dept).
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