The taxman cometh
A story of rationalisation, resilience, and naïvité
The letter from the taxman requiring me to attend a formal meeting was as unexpected as the letter I’d received from the police months earlier.
What did they want with me? I wasn’t living the high life on an undeclared income. I was doing my best to comply with tax laws, other laws, and visa requirements.
Let me back up a bit and explain what life was like before the police called me in.
I was working three part-time jobs. The odd night shift on an acute ward at a psychiatric hospital, cleaning cages and feeding the lab cats in the NeuroPsychology Department, and a few hours a month working in a wholesaler’s warehouse. It didn’t allow me to live a life of luxury, but I could pay my rent and even afford to splurge on a dinner of wine and whale fillet once in awhile.
Sure, sometimes someone forgot to lock the cages and I would arrive at 0530 to an orgy of cats, kittens, litter, and piss. Sometimes the police would knock on the door of the acute ward and, as soon as the person in severe mental distress crossed the threshold, say, “This is your responsibility now.”, leading to utter chaos until the qualified medical staff we summoned could arrive and sedate our new patient and every other patient that had joined in the disturbances. On a brighter note, sometimes my colleagues in the warehouse would let me use the price tag machine.
I had no complaints. In my 22-year-old eyes, life was good. Sure, my girlfriend had broken up with me, and I was “all alone” on the other side of a world that hadn’t yet invented free Zoom calls, Facebook, or affordable cell phones, but distant relatives on my father’s side kept an eye on me, invited me to family functions, and one extremely kind couple had even given me a free room for a year. I didn’t realize the amount of support (and likely even sacrifice) these people were giving me, and I wasn’t half as grateful as I should have been.
Every six months the university gave me a letter confirming my studies were progressing normally. I took it to the police station and the duty officer renewed my visa.
The visa gave me permission to work 20 hours per week. Collectively my three part-time jobs kept me below the 20-hour limit on my visa.
My life was humming along until a letter summoned me to the police station.
“The visa is linked to a job”, the policeman told me. “It’s not permission to work wherever you want for 20 hours a week.”
“It’s one visa, one employer, one job.”
The policeman had shot my hummingbird out of mid-air. Things would have to change. Drastically. Immediately.
I could have given up and gone home to Canada. I could have looked for a better-paying job. I could have applied for a student loan and housing grant.
I must have been too stubborn or, more likely, too naïve to choose any of those options.
Instead, I quit two of my jobs, and tried to max the hours of the third.
My dorm room was relatively inexpensive. So was dry pasta. Nothing else in Norway was. After paying rent and stocking up on non-perishable food (my diet varied between macaroni and spaghetti) I had 2,50 Norwegian Kroner per day in disposable income. At today’s rate that’s about 39 Canadian cents, but it’s easier if I explain that in those days, 2,50 was the exact price of one coffee, one newspaper, or one chocolate bar in the student canteen. When my willpower was at its strongest, I would skip coffee mid-week and then live a life of luxury on Fridays. It was an empowering feeling to stride into the cafeteria, buy a paper, a coffee, AND a chocolate bar. I felt privileged sitting there with my cup of joe and a “Kvik-Lunsj” while browsing through the paper.
Buying a bus pass was out of the question. I think one of my relatives suspected something and, although they never asked about my finances, they gave me an old bicycle. That helped until the day I tried to propel myself swiftly across a wide boulevard and tramped a little too hard on the pedal. Like most of the bike, the pedal was rusted through and snapped off. The weight of my downward thrust continued and when my foot hit the street, I went one way and the bike went another. Embarrassed, frustrated, and full of adrenaline, I grabbed the bike from the middle of the road and hurled it into a ditch. For all I know, it’s still there. On the other hand, it’s Norway, so someone probably retrieved it and restored it to use as a garden ornament. The basket on the front is likely now a flower pot.
Walking became my main mode of transportation and one day I’ll share with you the story of how those daily, hour-long walks to school in the rain led to the discovery of a creative side I didn’t know I had.
I can’t remember how long the situation lasted or how it resolved itself. Maybe I did find a better-paying job or maybe they changed the work visa rules.
Then the letter from the tax man arrived. The gist of it was “You, our office, now!”
The gentleman I met with was a stereotypical civil service accountant. Tweed coat, narrow, wool tie, receding hairline, round spectacles, and very focused on numbers. He focused on the numbers on my income tax forms. In his opinion, they were far too low.
“You are required to declare any money you bring in from Canada to fund your studies.”
I had exhausted the funds my parents had set aside for my education and both my brothers had allowed me to exhaust the funds they hadn’t used. They were extremely generous and kind. (Thanks, bros!)
I told the tax auditor that there was no money coming in from Canada.
“But you must have other funds,” he said.
“I don’t,” I said.
“The income you declared is less than half of minimum existence level”
“I exist.”, I said.
Our ability to rationalize is powerful, especially when you’re young, naïve, and a long way from home. In my mind, I was doing just fine. Sure, I knew my dorm mates spent more on beer on a single Friday night at the pub (where they partied every Friday and Saturday night) than I could spend in two months on canteen coffee. I wasn’t envious. I was doing the best I could with the means I had.
Perhaps that’s what some people would call resilience.
Stay safe, Always Care
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“Although it was clearly stated in the visa that my job was “Language Consultant” at the Institute of Psychology, in reality, I fed cats and cleaned cages for the institute.”
“The income you declared is less than half of minimum existence level”
“I exist.”, I said.
Oh man, I love these lines.
Such a great story. At least this wasn’t one of those cases where the bureaucrats went after the most minute detail possible. Either way, what a story of resilience… and amazing brothers.