Few things remind me of mind numbing redundancy than the requirement of the Kenya Revenue Authority that all tax payers submit their written returns. Countless man hours are wasted by taxpayers, accountants all around Kenya and KRA employees to collect data that they already bloody have. Mind numbing repetitive manual work at unnecessary cost to the taxpayer.

As I vented my spleen on this matter the other day on my fourth attempt at filling my returns, friends and relatives backed away to a safe distance and I let slip the dogs of war.

What is my problem with the process?

1. COMPLETELY redundant. You need a P9 form to fill in your returns. You then copy values from the P9 form onto your return. You then attach the same P9 form to your returns. Just think about that for a minute. What’s the damn point? I might as well just hand in my P9 again!
2. COMPLETELY Greek. Not a soul I know could fill in those forms unassisted. Many accountants (including ours) flounder with the Greek like forms asking you to subtract this from that and put it there. (49A + 12B + 5C). What. The. Fuzz?
3. COMPLETELY unacknowledged. If some KRA officials get marooned on an island and decide to set your returns on fire for warmth and cooking, you are buggered and have no recourse because you cannot prove you handed in the returns. You don’t get any receipts. In that same vain the KRA can’t prove that you didn’t either.
4. COMPLETELY brain dead. If my only income is from my job, and the money is deducted even before I see it, why bother me with amorphous forms asking me questions I neither know, care about or understand? My company accountant is paid to do this, and he does in 12 months a year. Why bother me?
5. COMPLETELY GRATUITIOUS use of my time. It is not, repeat NOT my work to track down landlords.

Instead of lowering taxes on cameras to promote the local porn movie industry

• Let tax returns only be for those with other income to declare. I don’t have flats or any other business so leave me alone and stop wasting my time!
• If we still have this foolishness, can’t the P9 be redesigned to BE the return for salaried employees?
• If we still have this foolishness, at least let it be online
• Stop asking me stupid questions. Especially if the answers are already in the P9
• Redesign the bloody thing to make it easier to fill. Why should I give my name, ID number, etc and I already filled in my PIN? It takes special talent to come up with the concept of Personal Identification Number and then ask me to identify myself some more. Nonsense.
• While at it, redesign the P9 too and label the figures with the corresponding slots in the returns forms. As it is both forms seem to have been designed by dyslexic, epileptic monkeys on crack and safari cane highs writing in a moving vehicle driving over corrugated potholes.

I assure whichever finance minister that scraps this stupidity, or at least reforms it, he will be thought of at least as a higher level mammal with binocular vision rather than the river trolls most people are sure their politicians are!

AOB

Yes, I am very much alive and have not been captured by martians. My blogging mojo is much sapped by twitter (http://twitter.com/roomthinker). However I shall make it a point to blog more. I have a lot to say

Few things are simultaneously exciting and terrifying like flying. I love everything about flying except the takeoff, and specifically the bit when the plane levels out. There was a flight I once took when I was sure that the damn thing had stopped mid-air and was deciding whether or not to crash. I love the rest. flying over the clouds, taking photos of clouds and formations and leaving the air flight hostesses in no doubt that the only time that powdered gunk they call milk will be introduced into my cup I will at the time be flying not as a passenger but as cargo. There’s no way I’m paying outrageous fare to drink powdered plaster of Paris. I know there is real milk in the galley and by George I’m going to get some.

In light of the unfortunate Air France crash, I recall a few years back I was flying from Gaborone to Jo’burg, and the passengers, (both of us) were asked to strap in by smiling stewardesses. We obliged. They then began the traditional volley of instructions on safe flying and halfway through, unable to contain myself I put my hand up.

The one giving me the instructions looked taken aback at the occurrence. Clearly she had yet to be questioned.

“Now then, Kelly,” I began comfortably. “We will be flying at 30,000 feet, which is 9-10 kilometers up, and  this Boeing 737 weighs about 50,000 kilos. True?”

Kelly gave her best South African Airways smile. “True”.

“Should something happen, gravity will insist that those 30,000 feet above sea level be reduced to more manageable levels. So, let’s say we have engine failure. Without the engine a 737 has the grace of an obese hippopotamus in molasses soaked weetabix. This bad boy will descend with the momentum of the gods. We will hit the ground so hard a small hill will be created in China. True?”

Kelly smiled her most professional smile.

“But we might hit the water,” my fellow passenger said thoughtfully.

“Clearly you have never belly flopped at the local swimming pool. At the speed we’ll be going by the time the plane hits the water, we might as well hit concrete. Less damp. But I digress. My point is, fortune does not favour the poor fools in a 50 tonne aircraft that had a direct hit to soil or water having descended as quickly as possible from 9 kilometers up.”

There was a brief silence and my wisdom was digested.

“Seriously, Kelly, is there any point in all these precautions? Will me putting my head between my knees, acrobat that I may be, make a difference if the plane hits the Republic Of Botswana at several hundred miles an hour?”

Kelly did not have an answer for me. But she gave me an extra dinner and several bags of peanuts and fascinating stories of the colourful life of cabin crew.

Our Father, who art in Heaven, was pleasantly surprised to hear from characters who generally used His Name in vain.