“How can this be?” said Lord Downey. “Don’t we pay our taxes?”
“Ah, I thought we might come to that,” said Lord Vetinari. He raised his hand and, on cue again, his clerk placed a piece of paper in it.
“Let me see now…ah yes. Guild of Assassins…Gross earnings in the last year: AM $13,207,048. Taxes paid in the last year: forty-seven dollars, twenty-two pence and what on examination turned out to be a Hershebian half-dong, worth one-eighth of a penny.”
“That’s all perfectly legal! The Guild of Accountants–”
“Ah yes. Guild of Accountants: gross earnings AM $7,999,011. Taxes paid: nil. But, ah yes, I see they applied for a rebate of AM $200,000.”
“And what we received, I may say, included a Hershebian half-dong,” said Mr. Frostrip of the Guild of Accountants.
“What goes around comes around,” said Vetinari calmly.
He tossed the paper aside. “Taxation, gentlemen, is very much like dairy farming. The task is to extract the maximum amount of milk with the minimum of moo. And I am afraid to say that these days all I get is moo.”
“Are you telling us that Ankh-Morpork is bankrupt?” said Downey.
“Of course. While, at the same time, full of rich people. I trust they have been spending their good fortune on swords.”
“And you have allowed this wholesale tax avoidance?” said Lord Selachii.
“Oh, the taxes haven’t been avoided,” said Lord Vetinari. “Or even evaded. They just haven’t been paid.”
“This is a disgusting state of affairs!”
The Patrician raised his eyebrows. “Commander Vimes?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Would you be so good as to assemble a squad of your most experienced men, liase with the tax gatherers and obtain the accumulated back taxes, please? My clerk here will give you a list of the prime defaulters.”
“Right, sir. And if they resist, sir?” said Vimes, smiling nastily.
“Oh, how can they resist, commander? This is the will of our civic leaders.” He took the paper his clerk prooffered. “Let me see, now. Top of the list–”
Lord Selachii coughed hurriedly. “Far too late for that sort of nonsense now,” he said.
“Water under the bridge,” said Lord Downey.
“Dead and buried,” said Mr. Slant.
“I paid mine,” said Vimes.
–Terry Pratchett, Jingo
(via knitmeapony)
