the taxman

I got a letter from the taxman yesterday.

IT was the part of the man that tells me what my property is worth so they can tax it.

Sensibly they decided my house was worth less than the year before. They even lowered the value of the lot the house sits on, which reflects a bit of good sense as well.

But the computer looked at my garden and blew a bit or byte. I have .8 of an acre (after a few right of ways are deducted) and the computer said: “Ahh, not one but two building lots!”

So they quadrupled the value of that small plot, as they kept the value of my aging shop/studio the same.

This has happened before.

I will make a trip to the proper office and ask if they would issue a couple of building permits on this valuable piece of property. They will look grim and I will smile. “It is a little scrap of land between a canal and a ditch. There is no legal access. It cannot ever be a building lot. It will always be a garden, an unsaleable one.”

They will say they will check it out and in a week or three I'll get a letter saying that indeed the property is really worth even less than it was last year.

Someone has to keep the on their toes!