Surtax Manners
SIR.—The experience of Strix with the Accountant General (Cashier), who sent back a renewed demand note in place of a receipt for surtax paid, is one which is probably familiar to many other tax-payers, as well as to myself. But there are many other jeux d'esprit of an even more subtle character to be enjoyed from the same source. Two years ago, for instance, I wrote a book, which in decent modesty I will refer to as Banana Split. A year later I received a letter from the income-tax authorities asking me, among other things, whether " any other books have been written in respect of Banana Split." The writer of the letter presumably believed that no communication could be properly drafted which did not include, somewhere or other, the phrase in respect of." But another hand had struck out the phrase and replaced it by the words " in addition to." The answer to the question as then put could
surely only be: "Yes, simply miflions, but not by me!' If I had thus answered correctly, no doubt my allowances would have been docked as a punishment for impertinence. But by not giving this, the only truthful answer, did I not render myself liable to a heavy fine, or imprisonment, or both?—Yours sincerely, C. M. WOODHOUSE. Homewood, Knebworth, Hens.
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