I last submitted my taxes in November of 2012 when I stopped working full-time and became a student. My income became more erratic and I more protective of what I had earned. I did not want to give over extra to SARS in case I had a bad few months and no savings to fall back on. The thought of being unable to pay my bond and medical aid, or buy food, was simply too terrifying. Visions of penury, eviction and hunger kept me up all night (at times). That was one reason I ignored my taxes. The other was their complexity. The thought of keeping slips and entering these into my monthly accounts just seemed too much like complicated effort. And then, as increasing evidence emerged of Jacob Zuma's corruption, I told myself that by withholding my taxes I was engaging in a thoroughly justified exercise in civil disobedience. As Stephen King wrote (although I suspect the original idea is Nietzschean): 'We lie best when we lie to ourselves.'
But now that lie is exposed: SARS has contacted me to ask where my tax returns are. It had to happen sometime. The chaos and disorder sown by Tom Moyane could not last forever. And it is important that the tax avoidant cough up - how else will we start filling the holes in the budget? But where am I to find the money?
I have cut back on work in order to focus on completing my PhD. But I wasted a year and my scholarship ends in March of next year. I will not have finished by then and I will have a tax debt to pay off. Frugality will have to become the order of the day and I am unfamiliar with exercising control over my expenditure; if I want it I must have it. This week I made a stab at its practice, trying to spend less than R150/day on food. It wasn't that difficult - but then I realised how much I spent on other things: petrol, Gautrain travel, cat food. These things add up.
Today I impressed myself by not eating out. Having a burger would have been pure greed. I was not hungry and eating for the sake of doing so. It as if some part of me is daring another to see just how fat and unwell I can become. I compensated by buying two kaftans - one of which was on sale at a third of the price. But I do need clothes. Five of my shirt tops have torn at the armpit and can't really be worn in public, unless I want to look down, out and psychiatric-pitiable.
So that's why I'll be writing more steem-it posts. I need the money.