RANGE: A creature fond of earth and the home, the Tax Burden naturally hangs around real estate offices looking after his interests—but his awful presence can also be felt quarterly in corporate boardrooms, daily at assessors’ offices, and frequently wherever big money changes hands. His only known holiday is April 15th. His presence is, curiously, something of a status symbol, and many people, such as the very rich, complain loudly and incessantly of his torments although in reality he seldom bothers them at all. He is vast and still growing and totally omnivorous. He is especially fond of paychecks, from which he has been known to take big bites. HABITS: The Tax-Burden has been accused, by his detractors, of playing the percentages and other mischievous deeds. They say that he (like many a fairy before him) feeds and clothes the poor—widows and orphans and the like. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Tax Burden is actually a benign and generous goblin, who fills with gold the pockets of needy armaments manufacturers and, all in fun, devotes any of his leftover wealth to funding committees investigating methods of exterminating him. But the dark shadow which the Tax Burden casts upon the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is said to sap the get-up-and-go-profit-motivatedenergy that Made This Country Great. Many a listless youth would dash from his street corner hangout and rescue a millionaire’s daughter on her runaway horse, were it not that the Tax Burden whispers in his ear, “What’s the use? It would only put you in a higher tax bracket, anyway.” HISTORY: “A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of Communism,” wrote Karl Marx in 1848. These days, an equally terrifying specter haunts America: the Tax Burden, which, like Communism, takes all your money and gives it to the State, but, unlike Communism, does not supply you with a free pair of rimless spectacles in return. There is every reason to believe that the Tax Burden, like so many of our woes, is of Russian origin—and is a descendant of the highly un-Orthodox fairy Ruskali, once responsible for the Czarist version of the I.R.S. On a sight-seeing trip through the Gulag, this indomitable fairy wandered across the Aleutians, and arrived just in time to inspire Seward’s Folly. Today, thanks to the arcane Laffer ritual being practiced by Federal exorcists, there is hope of relief from the torments of the Tax Burden—at least, for the very rich. SPOTTER’S TIPS: Like most Evil Spirits, the Tax Burden is usually invisible. But he can be seen clearly—an obese, greedy, grinning monster perched upon the backs of the people—by political candidates to whom he appears every four years. If we ordinary people keep our eyes open, we, too, can occasionally see a Tax Burden—escaping through a loophole, to join the Gnomes of Zurich.
棲息地 政治家や役人にとりつ
いて、人びとの汗の結晶をむり
やりしぼりとる。 彼らの存在が
とくに強く感じられるのは,サ
ラリーマンなら給料日, 商人や
農民にとっては確定申告の時期
である。
習性 重税の精が人びとにきら
われるのは,過去も現在も変わ
りがない。 ただ、 現在のほうが
りがない。ただ、現在のほうが
いろいろな策を弄して巧妙にな
ったといえるだろう。
むかし、まだ貧富の差がはげ
しかった時代には,重税の精は
大地主や領主たちに加担して,
小作農や領民たちから力づくで
税金を奪いとっていた。 納める
金とてない人からは、 彼らの服
や寝具までもむしりとってしま
った。
当然のことながら, 妖精たち
は人びとから憎まれさげすまれ
てい
ときには、領主や大地主たち
といっしょに焼き殺されたりも
したといわれている。
現在でも、国民の99パーセン
トの人びとから, 妖精たちのパ
ーセント遊びを批判されてい
る。 残りの1パーセントの人
も、社会的弱者にばかり税金を
使いすぎると,不平をいってい
る。
いや、重税の精を神棚に祀っ
役人や政治家
ている人もいる。
たちだ!
重税の精自身は、むかしもい
まも変わらずに人びとの役に立
とうと真剣に考えるのだが,人
びとのおもわくにふりまわさ
れもて遊ばれ, 一種の悲劇の
主人公となっている。 それが彼
ら妖精たちに課せられた税金な
のかもしれない。
歴史 人間社会に支配者が生ま
重税の精たちも
れると同時に、
この世に生をうけた。 1848年,
カール・マルクスは「ヨーロッ
パを妖怪が徘徊している 共
産主義という妖怪が…」と書
いたが, それと同じように恐ろ
しい妖怪が世界じゅうを徘徊し
ている。 それが重税の精なの
だ。
私立探偵の情報 いつもはその
姿は見えないが, 選挙が近づい
たときや、税務署のなかなどで
は,とりすました彼らの顔がは
っきりと見えてくる。
198
Habitat
Latches onto politicians and bureaucrats, forcibly squeezing out the crystallized sweat of the people. Their presence is felt most keenly by salaried workers on payday, and by merchants and farmers at tax filing season.
Behavior
The heavy tax sprite has always been despised — that hasn’t changed. If anything, they’ve simply become more cunning and elaborate in their methods over time.
Long ago, when the gap between rich and poor was severe, the tax sprite sided with great landowners and feudal lords, forcibly wresting taxes from tenant farmers and subjects. From those who had nothing left to pay, they’d strip the very clothes off their backs and the bedding from under them.
Naturally the sprites were hated and looked down upon — and it’s said that on occasion they were burned alive along with their lords and landowners.
Even today, 99% of the population criticizes the sprites’ percentage games. The remaining 1% complain that too much tax money is being spent on the socially vulnerable.
And yet — there are those who enshrine the tax sprite on their household altar. Bureaucrats and politicians!
The tax sprite itself, now as ever, genuinely wants to be of service to the people — but gets pushed around and toyed with by public opinion, becoming a kind of tragic protagonist. Perhaps that is the tax levied upon the sprites themselves.
History
The heavy tax sprite was born into this world at the same moment rulers first emerged in human society. In 1848, Karl Marx wrote: “A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Communism…” But an equally terrifying specter haunts the entire world. That specter is the heavy tax sprite.
Field Intelligence
Their appearance is normally invisible — but as elections approach, or inside tax offices, their composed, self-important faces come into sharp focus.
198
This reminds me of the cornerstone of my theory. I wouldn’t mind the tax burden of a Secret treasure casque!