Taxes

In a recent letter the secretary of the Victorian Taxpayers’ Association said that from the moment we got out of bed in the morning we pay taxes. Cradles were liable to sales tax. So were coffins.

Someone has said,
From the day we draw breath
Until life be sped
Two things are certain:
Taxes and death.
From the rise of the curtain,
On life’s dreary round,
As hope wanes or waxes,
Man ever found
Two things are certain:
Taxes and death—
Especially taxes.

We rise in the morning
(A fatuous gesture.
Sleep, man, and stay warm.)
Then, with tax-laden vesture,
We go to adorning
Our tax-laden form.
We hark to the wireless,
Pour tea from a pot,
Read the paper, eat butter . . .
With energy tireless
They’ve taxed the whole lot.
’Tis useless to mutter;
A rod for our backs is
Concealed everywhere:
Toil, taxes and care—
Especially taxes.

They tax us for spending,
For giving, for saving,
With peeping and prying
They follow us up,
To tax us for lending,
For working and slaving,
Or playing or buying.
Their thrice bitter cup
Is all times at our lip.
Oh, it gives me the pip!
I could rise up and curse
Both in plain prose and verse! . . .
But what use
Is abuse?
For, as someone has said,
From rise of the curtain
When first we draw breath—
From cradle to coffin
(Tho’ death comes less often) . . .
Two things are certain:
Taxes and death.