I have never in my life been asked to fill out an American income-tax return; as a British non-resident I have all my American earnings painlessly taxed at source, and there the matter ends. In Great Britain, of which by an ingenious legal quirk I am ‘deemed to be a resident, though permanently domiciled abroad’, my earnings are also taxed at source; but I am at least allowed to employ an income-tax consultant, or rather a pair of them – Messrs Ribbons & Winder of Aquarium Road, Rhyl – in my defence. Every year they send me a form to fill in (we British fill in, not out, I don’t know why) and discreetly advise me how, by clever albeit legal devices, to get a chunk of my forfeited earnings refunded. This year, however, they took twelve months to conclude their business, because the Bank of England (‘Safe as the Bank of England!’) admitted that it had lost certain documents relevant to my case – the Government meanwhile enjoying an interest-free loan of my money. Unfair, surely, to Graves, who left his country only for his country’s good?
What do You think about Complete Short Stories (2009)?
