Taxes Taxes Taxes

April 30th is fast approaching.
To me, April 30th means only one thing ... the fact that taxes have to be paid by this day, else you will get a big fat fine.
And I think it is no secret that people hate paying taxes, me, no different.

It is not like I disagree with the concept of paying taxes, I think that it is fair we get taxed some % and the government uses the money wisely so that we can all enjoy the facilities and development as a nation. But to be taxed 27%? Hmm ... maybe it is a little too much considering the silly things we have to put up with.

For example ... the IRB. They are really an inefficient bunch. 2 days ago when I went to submit my forms to the Pandan Indah branch ...first of all, upon reaching the lobby of the building, I was looking for a place to drop my forms and get an acknowledgment receipt. There were some boxes there, manned by several people, but you cannot get an acknowledgment stamp if you dropped it there ... you have to go upstairs to get it stamped. Hmm ... one would have thought that the stamp would have been a mighty big stamp full of complex mechanisms and obviously expensive cause people are not willing to bring it downstairs .... but no, it was just a small normal stamps that we usually use. So why can't the people manning the boxes downstairs have this???

Secondly, when we were told to go up the building, you would have thought that being the department who collects so much of money, the lift services would at least have been decent. But, are you in for a surprise! There were only 3 lifts on the lobby, servicing the 20+ floors ... and each lift can only hold 17 people!!!! and it was damn slow. Can you imagine waiting for the lift for a good 10 minutes? And every time the lift came, people will be rushing to it, crowding the entrance until the people inside cannot come out. Even the pregnant lady was not given a chance, she also had to squeeze for her chance to go into the lift!!

That was going up the building ... when I was going down, I witnessed something really hilarious ... that it was almost embarrassing. The lifts took a lifetime to come as usual. Then, when it came, people rushed into the lift. Then the lift beeped ... overloaded .... and cannot close the doors. What do you think people would do? Step out right? But because lifts were difficult to come by, NOBODY got out! So, everyone was in the lift and the doors kept opening and closing and then the BRILLIANT security guard came. He attempted to close the door by forcing the doors to close! Can you imagine this? We usually force the doors to open, which was still within logic and capability, but to force it to close?? Hello! Where is the common sense man? Then finally, someone sensible decided to get out ... lo and behold, the doors closed.

While I was in IRB, I was approached by an officer there who gave me a waiting ticket. He seemed overly eager to hand out tickets cause he did not seemed to hear what I wanted. You see, for the first time in 9 years, I overpaid taxes, so I wanted a refund and I asked if there was a counter I can go to to fill forms, whatever. Then he said "Aiya, kenapa tak cakap?" Grrr ... I did you stupid punk, you just did not listen!!

And so, I went to the counter and told the girl of my wanting to get a refund order in place...then she stared at me "Kita di sini cuma terima form sahaja, cik perlu pergi ke cawangan cik untuk buat tuntutan refund" .... arghh!!! stupid stupid, how can you have so many counters doing only one thing? And I remembered last year, I paid my additional taxes here at the counter, so why can't I do that this year? So the lady said "Tak ada, sini cuma untuk terima form sahaja" ... stupid stupid.

Then I said, can I fax in the form instead? She said "Boleh cubalah". So I asked for the fax number to Wangsa Maju's branch .... "Hmm....nanti duluah say tanya pegawai" Hello? Don't they have a list of phone numbers that all of them silly people can go check with? Well, apparently no. Then another lady came to me and said "Apa hal?" So I explained and then she went away and then another lady came and asked "Apa hal?" Can you imagine I repeated myself 3 times just to get a bloody fax number?? Aiyo, then finally got it. But they say "Tak tau ada orang nampak fax you, lebih baik pergi sana sendiri" ... *Pengsan*

Nett nett, I am not sure why the government makes it so unfriendly to us tax payers when we want to pay taxes. I was actually thinking of going there to register for e-filing, but guess what? I have to go 6 floors higher to do that. Then I imagined the lifts condition ... hmm maybe not.
Why can't the government pick somewhere sensible for the tax offices to be located and have all the relevant facilities put up front so that people do not need to go and queue for lifts, numbers, counters with singular functions, then to be told that they have to go back to their relevant branches to put in a request to pay additional taxes/ to ask for a refund of excess payments etc.

Relevant parties should recognize that we are doing our civic duties to pay those exorbitant taxes and it is their responsibilities to minimize our pain in doing so. At least make the experience pleasant ler so we don't feel the pinch so much.

Buck up "Malaysia Boleh"!!