The Occupation Tax

[Thomas]

Hotwine, the best answer I ever got from a bureaucrat came last month at a town meeting. The assessor talked about four suits against his office for over assessing some and under assessing others. When asked what he thought the outcome of the suits would be he said, "We'll lose. We always lose a tax assessment lawsuit."

My ears perked up. I asked.

"If you always lose aren't there two things you might want to ask yourself? One: why do we pursue lawsuits at the taxpayer's expense that we know we can't win? Two: is it possible that we lose because we have a bad system that needs fixing?"

He looked at me for a few seconds, like a cow watching a train go by, and then he said. "I don't think we should change anything."

[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 10-18-2004).]