Literature and insights

Citation

Evans, S. (2011), "Literature and insights", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 24 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/aaaj.2011.05924daa.001

Literature and insights

Article Type: Literature and insights From: Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Volume 24, Issue 4

Celebrating people and taxation

In 2010, the Royal Australian Mint released a coin that was, I am sure, immediately taken to the hearts of all citizens in the country. With a face value of 20 cents, it commemorated the centenary of the Australian Taxation Office and bears the words, “Working for all Australians”, a phrase that has been described as typifying the commitment and engagement of this government authority.

It was a time of much celebration. There was also a 60 cent stamp issued by Australia Post and a history of the ATO was released as a book, Working for All Australians: A Brief History of the Australian Taxation Office 1910-2010 (Edmonds, 2010; also available free in pdf or ePub format). In his speech at the ATO Official Centenary Event, the Commissioner of Taxation said:

I am immensely proud of the endeavour and integrity of my staff and of the commitment they show to public service. A commitment that shows no sign of abating and no sign of complacency (D’Ascenzo, 2010).

This theme of it being the people that mattered is a recurring one in other related speeches and in the published history mentioned above. During my years working at the ATO, that aspect was also prominent. For instance:

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  I remember arriving at the ATO and being fascinated by the games of cricket that were played in the long corridors between filing cabinets during each tea break, and sometimes well beyond them.

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  The office handyman kept a snake in his toolbox after he discovered some of his tools had been borrowed without permission; that did seem to quell the unauthorized use.

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  During a late night of overtime work assessing tax returns, one couple was found naked on a desktop, presumably not discussing the finer points of a claim for deductibility. They later married.

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  A tax auditor managed to drive one of the office cars into the side of the State Governor’s Rolls-Royce while executing a tricky parking manouvre. He argued that it was not his fault because he only looked away momentarily as he picked his nose.

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  An assessor claimed to dislike working for the government so much that when the pay trolley reached our section one day, he ceremoniously burnt his unopened pay packet in an ashtray. (I know, you’re thinking it must have been a long time ago and it was – a pay trolley, and smoking allowed indoors!) His nervous breakdown followed soon after.

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  Assessors in one area used to take bets on the age of the next customer of the prostitute whose room was in a building directly opposite their own.

And so on. If you work long enough for any organization there are bound to be anecdotes about events and people. Many people only stayed at the ATO a brief time. I later found that if you applied to work in the Commonwealth Public Service, the ATO was typically very low on applicants’ lists of desirable organisations and, conversely, high on the list of jobs actually offered. As I was previously working in accounting, however, it didn’t seem an illogical choice.

Anyway, heart-warming antics of the kind described here must have escaped the late George Harrison’s attention when he decided to write about taxation. Once he learned how much of his earnings he was contributing to the national revenue collection system in the UK, he was not in a very charitable mood. He penned a song “Taxman” that opened the group’s album Revolver, and which included the words:

Now my advice for those who die, (Taxman!)Declare the pennies on your eyes, (Taxman!)Cause I’m the TaxmanYeah, I’m the TaxmanAnd you’re working for no one but me (Taxman!) (Harrison, 1966).

Thus, Harrison managed to combine the two supposedly certain things, death and taxes.

There may have not have been sing-alongs in the ATO (though Tax Office: The Musical has a ring about it), but the ATO was not without its own cultural life too. Its published history even includes a poem, “Welcome Stranger”, by Lionel Jones (2010), a former tax employee, which describes the plight of the tax auditor visiting a country town. It is written in the literary style of a well-known nineteenth century poem by Banjo Paterson, “Clancy of the Overflow” and essays the predicament of socialising at a hotel with taxpayers who must be aware they are next in line to be audited.

Can we be confident of a little tear of recognition, then, whenever a taxpayer pulls one of the commemorative 20 cent coins from a pocket or purse? Perhaps not. What I would like to see issued next by the mint is a banknote, not a mere coin, that commemorates the most important person in all of this; the taxpayer. Come on, Royal Australian Mint. How about it? Why not a hundred-dollar note dedicated to the humble taxpayer? Do it before another country beats you to it!

Speaking of money, it is the face of Banjo Paterson (1899), that adorns the Australian $10 note. His famous poem “The Man from Snowy River” inspires Dianne Dean’s wonderful homage, “The Man from Sydney City”, in this issue with its observations on the important role of communication in business deals. Following this, we have another poem, Lyn Daff’s “The Research Proposal”, which offers the often difficult moment of framing a research proposal, with the long path of work looming ahead.

I look forward to your contribution to this section of the journal, which can be sent to me at: steve.evans@flinders.edu.au

Acknowledgements

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (AAAJ) welcomes submissions of both research papers and creative writing. Creative writing in the form of poetry and short prose pieces is edited for the Literature and Insights Section only and does not undergo the refereeing procedures required for all research papers published in the main body of AAAJ.

Steve EvansLibrary Editor