World: Taxing Couplets

A. P. Herbert, British wit, last week felt the pinch a bit. His income tax for ’58 he dutifully had paid the state. Demands for £85 more made the noted author roar:

Dear Bankers, PAY the undermentioned hounds The shameful sum of FIVE-AND-EIGHTY POUNDS.

By “hound,” of course, by custom one refers To SPECIAL (INCOME TAX} COMMISSIONERS . . .

This is the second lot of tax, you know, On money that I earned two years ago (The shark, they say, by no means Nature’s knight, Will rest contented with a single bite: The barracuda, who’s a fish more fell, Comes back and takes the other leg as well}.

Somewhere deep in the income tax bureaucracy sat an official eager to answer verse with verse. Though Herbert had paid, and overpaid, the tax man still no refund made:

Dear Sir, It is with pleasure that I thank You for your letter, and the order to your bank . . .

Your liability for later years Is giving your accountants many tears: And till such time as they and we can come To amicable settlement on the sum That represents your tax-bill to the State I’ll leave the overpayment to its fate.

I do not think this step will make you frown:

The sum involved is only half-a-crown.

Matched at his own game, the 70-year-old Herbert found the subject too taxing:

I thank you, Sir, but am afraid Of such a rival in my trade: One never should encourage those—In future, I shall pay in prose.