Escher, Beetlejuice and the Receiver of Revenue

The Receiver of Revenue is a lot like I imagine being stuck in Escher's House of Stairs. Endless. Confusing. Pointless.

The Receiver of Revenue, despite all evidence to the contrary, has a sense of humour. Its twisted and macabre, but its there. I managed to navigate my way through the centre of town, found a rundown parking lot and made my way to their offices. Only they aren’t there anymore. There’s a post-it note stuck on the door saying they’ve moved. 

I was not about to be deterred. I had taken a day off and I was going to make it count. I got back in my car, bailed it out for a substantial amount of money and entered the maze of city streets all going in the wrong direction. I found the new offices, which weirdly enough are where the old offices used to be. I bribed my way into a secure parking lot.

Guard: “Where are you going?”

Me: “The tax man.”

Guard sympathetically: “This is a private parking lot. I help you, you help me?”

Me: “How much does help cost?”

Guard: “Twenty bucks.”

Me: “Eight bucks.”

Guard: “Ten bucks.”

Done. This is why I love Africa. You can always negotiate, except with the Receiver.

Off I traipse to the entry, only for some reason they’ve decided to play switcheroo today and swop them around, so I traipse around some more to yesterday’s exit. I stand in a queue.

Guard: “Wadda ya want?”

Me: “I have a dispute.”

He handed me a neon yellow laminated card with GENERAL on it.

Me: “Where do I go?”

Guard: “Follow them.”

I followed the people in front of me. We went up a corridor and down a corridor, up a corridor and down a corridor following the signs to the exit. After about twenty minutes I was convinced we’d just be ushered out the other side none the wiser. 

About 5 meters from the exit we were suddenly routed into a large empty room filled with steel chairs. It was surreal. I felt like I was in an episode of Lost or wandered onto the set of Beetlejuice. I kept expecting to see Michael Keaton sitting next to me. 

In silence we sat and stared at the screen waiting for our number to be called. I was 4001. Lost ticket numbers circulated on the bottom of the screen. I reckon number 722 had either given up and gone home, or was the man slumped over his seat at the back who may have actually have died there. Over the next half hour we shuffled along seat by seat. 

I logged onto Foursquare and became the Mayor of the Receiver of Revenue. Not that it entitled me to anything.

Finally, the computerised voice assembled from accents of all South African cultures into a bizarre audio intonation called my number. It took me another twenty minutes to find my counter. I stated my case. I pleaded. I begged. I showed the evidence in my favour. Eventually, my impassioned tones reached the ears of a Receiver of Revenue Lifer. She shuffled over to me and I resorted to reading her name tag and deferring to her in my rusty Afrikaans as “Mevrou Mybergh, asseblief kan u my help?”

Three hours after I entered the back door I exited through the front one with… a form. A form! A bloody form! Which I have to complete in triplicate! For every year since 1999! And yes it deserves a lot of exclamation points. A form! I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I think some people get lost in that building and never find their way out. I think it is place out of time stuck in a void between worlds in a timeless loop. You could walk out the door clutching your rebate and find that thirty years have passed while you’ve been inside.

 

There is a difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance. I don't evade it, I avoid it because I have learnt that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.