Happiness is marrying a woman for love, then discovering that her father is a millionaire. This only happens in the movies and in dreams. As for the current global financial crisis, I have discovered that your admirers leave you, disappear, and forget your name. The only one who remains at your side is the bank you borrow from, and it now wants to squeeze your money out of your skin and blood. This is inspired by living in London, and readers should not be frightened of the topic, unless you reside here, like me. Also, I am going to mix the serious and the joking around, since the topic is too painful to be treated only in serious fashion. A reader who takes it upon himself to go out and buy a newspaper in the morning, or someone who sees it on the internet for free, deserve to be treated in kind. Finally, I do not have the financial background to tackle an issue like taxes as if I were a chartered accountant. I was alert enough in school to decide that algebra is of no use, except for creating the job of algebra teacher. I ignored it and focused on calculus; I can claim to be able to convert dollars to euros and pounds, or vice versa, and I can add up the price of what I buy, whether it is fruit or underwear, and compare the prices in Britain, France and Italy, where I usually shop. However, I never once imagined that I would live in the world of stocks and shares, bonds and derivatives, going long and short, and hedging, etc. or deal with a stock broker who was divorced by his wife because he never did anything other than stand near the bed and tell her things would improve. Thus, in the morning I get the mail and set aside all of the light brown envelopes, assuming that they are from the Tax Authority. I put them in a big envelope and send it to the accountant, who returns it to me, with an X where I should sign, as if I were illiterate. In fact, I am illiterate when it comes to taxes, and I am fully aware of this. I should say here that I am not writing about myself only, but about thousands of Arabs and other residents of London, who have begun to flee Great Britain from an increase in taxes. I read that 140,000 residents benefit from a tax break on what they own outside Britain, and that 30,000 of them will be subject to the highest British tax rates, after the amendment of 2008, even though they now pay around 17 billion pounds in taxes every year. The new governing coalition announced that it rejected all of the Labor Party's policies, except for taxes. I do not have a high enough income to put me into the club of 30,000, but many of my friends are in this group. They have begun to end their subscriptions and leave the country. One of them feels, with the coming of tax day, that he is a sheep on the way to the slaughter. My idea of the tax system is that it is based on a tax employee asking you: How much money do you have? You answer him, and he says, send it to me. Rich people turn into Indian fakirs, or look for a poor Indian or Somali to pay their way, or perhaps fight over peanuts with a monkey in a zoo. The difference between the ordinary person and the late Nelson Rockefeller, for example, is that the latter was smart. When he faced Congress in 1974, after being named vice president by Gerald Ford, who was also unelected, members of Congress discovered that Rockefeller paid less tax than his chauffeur. All of the family's wealth was in trust funds, or off shore, and out of the reach of taxes. Ordinary people, meanwhile, cannot fill out a tax form because it is so complex. If they were smart enough to understand the tax code, then their incomes would be higher than what they declare. Of course, they do not need much smarts to hide some of their income from taxes; thus the most imaginative novels published this year on in April, when it is time to fill out tax forms. I read that three-quarters of all financial investments are set up in a way that benefits the seller, not the buyer. As an example of this we have Goldman Sachs, whose customers were sold financial deals that the bank was betting would lose money, so that it could “win.” I also read that it is ten times easier to spend than to save, and twenty times easier to spend money rather than earn it. I believe the final figure is conservative, since readers and I know a thousand ways to spend money, and one way to get it, if it exists in the first place. There are inexplicable riddles in this entire topic; stock exchanges rise and then fall, like everything else. What goes up must come down, as they say. However, I have found that when it comes to money, or the lack of it, I fall with the market but do not rise. As an Armenian friend of mine says, “I have no luck, as the ship comes this way, and I go that way,” mocking the famous verse by al-Mutanabbi. Whether it goes this or that way, the problem is still related to finding a peaceful solution. [email protected]
