it was a thursday afternoon, i think last week, when i received a call from my grand mother informing me that the Income Tax guys have come home with a notice…

That’s the last thing I wanted to happen, because the taxman coming home is never a welcome sign… shivers went up my spine, and I wondered whether my exorbitant credit card bills had to do anything with it at all.

Nevertheless, my grand mother handed over the phone to the tax official and he informs me that I have got a refund for paying excess tax last year.. i heaved a sigh of relief. I told him to hand over the cheque to my grand mother but he refused to.

He wanted to come and meet me. Now there was something fishy there. He insisted on coming all the way to my office at Royapettah and promised me he will reach me in 15 minutes.

And he was there indeed bang on. He greeted me in a typical Tanglish accent “Gut morning sir (it was 3.30 in the afternoon). He hands over a sheet of paper. I go through it and figure out, that it is not even the refund cheque but just a notice asking me to furnish my bank details and mail it to the income tax office.

I told him thank you, he said “gut morning sir”, this time thrice. Clearly he was wanting a tip. I had no option but to pull out a hundred rupee note and he is all smiles. He assures me the refund will be processed immediately and leaves.

Well, incidents like this happen every day in this great city of Chennai. Will we be able to put an end to this. I know I am encouranging this by having paid him, but I had no other go.

But what is more disheartening is when I was sharing this incident with a friend of mine, he was telling me the same thing happens with pensioners, whose monthly pension is about Rs. 500 and imagine if they are stripped of a Rs. 100 from that.

Lets hope things change for the better.