A Tax Proposal by Bill Kirton
I’m reasonably intelligent. That’s not a boast. I managed to fool most of the people most of the time when I was a university lecturer. I got a PhD, wrote what were laughingly known as ‘learned’ articles, and talked about Sisyphus, Racine, Flaubert, Sartre and others with students who, probably out of politeness, rarely complained. So when, each year, I find myself reduced to baffled, tearful despair as I stare at my self-assessment tax return on the HM Gov screen, I wonder how those less fortunate than myself in terms of the educational levels they’ve been allowed to access manage to get beyond the bit where they ask for your name. Some people have obviously worked hard designing the form(s) and their goal was, no doubt, to simplify it/them so that any idiot can dash off the answers in a matter of minutes. Well, this idiot can’t. Even though I can treat many, many sections as ‘Not Applicable’, those that remain mix and mingle incomings and outgoings in bewildering combinatio...