Þarf útlending til að tala um þetta?

Af hverju þarf innflytjanda til að taka þennan málstað upp nú stuttu fyrir kosningar: Hvað innheimtukerfi skattsins er snúið og ógagnsætt. Af hverju getur kvikindið ekki gefið út greiðsluseðla með eindaga sem maður sér í heimabankanum?

Svo ég grípi nú inn í miðja grein (birtist í nýjasta Grapevine), þar sem höfundur lýsir því hvernig manneskja í toppstöðu hjá Tollstjóranum byrjar á rullunni og neitar því að eitthvað sé athugavert við afgreiðslu mála:

"Then, her expression and tone of voice abruptly changed and she became confidential. She told me that it was common for people not to understand that their payments were due, especially for reassessed taxes. But the rules didn’t allow her to send bills, and she couldn’t change the rules. She implied that she was kind of fed up with such cases herself, but nothing would happen unless the public complained. She said she would appreciate it if I would appeal as far as possible up the chain of command, especially because, in this case, the reassessment had taken place because of RSK’s mistake. The first step would be to send a formal appeal to her, which, she explained, she would deny. I could then appeal to the Ministry of Finance.

I sent her the letter of appeal, which she promptly denied. In the meantime, I called up two people I know who are retired from responsible positions in government finance. Let’s call them Björn and Örn. Örn made some inquiries on my behalf. “I talked to the head guy at Tollstjórinn,” he said, “and he thought what happened to you was totally ridiculous. But he can’t do anything about it, because it would set a dangerous precedent.” Björn grilled me for a whole afternoon in his living room before satisfying himself that I really hadn’t tried to cheat on my taxes and writing up a letter of support in Icelandic."

Það eru svo margir sem hafa svipaðar sögur að segja af helvítis skattinum. Af hverju reynir ekki nokkur flokkur að skora keilur á þessu. Það er eins og þeir haldi að skatturinn sé vinsæll. ...