Journalist and Income Tax.

Opunake Times, Volume IV, Issue 170, 18 February 1896, Page 2

Journalist and Income Tax.

A Melbourne journalist thus relates his difficulty : —Mr T. Prout Webb, a gentleman with whom I have not the remotest personal acquaintance, has been kind enough to anticipate the 14th February by a remarkable valentine, duly franked, and labelled in the most ferocious type, “On Her Majesty’s Service.” Apparently the meaning of this formidable pile of stationery enclosed is that Mr T. Prout Webb, by his agent and attorney—initials illegible—is dissatisfied with my income tax return of last year, and objects to it in toto on the ground that “no allowance* can be made for domestic taxes.” Whereupon the said Thomas Prout Webb furnishes me with an elaborate arithmetical calculation, the end and aim of which is to show that I am indebted to Her Majesty in the sum of fourpence, and that, having heavy bills to meet, Her Majesty is reluctantly compelled to press for immediate payment, which musfc be made forthwith by banker’s draft, bank notes, gold, postal note, or postal order, or, if under 10s, by Victorian postage stamps. The consequences of failing to meet this demand are delicately hinted at on a page or so of closely-printed foolscap. This reference to domestic taxes reminds me that I did make a certain deduction for dog tax, but I can assure Mr T. Prout Webb that the animal can in no sense be termed a domestic. He is indeed a terror to the small boys of the neighborho<j|d, and has already lamed two butchers and a greengrocer. I have not the* slightest doubt in the world that on ' encouragement he would even bite a public servant. At all events, if Mr Prout Webb will make an appointment I will call at his office with the dog and allow him to judge personally whether it is a domestic animal or not.