Taxes in a Third World Country

I just read an article by @anomadsoul - https://steemit.com/busy/@anomadsoul/getting-paperwork-done-in-a-3rd-world-country-a-tolkien-worthy-odyssey, which of course is about the time that is wasted by a citizen of a third world country to have paperwork done.

What I am going to tell you is not exactly about paperwork, even though like in all third world countries Honduras does also have its problems. No, what happened to me is the following, I quit my job back in 2013, I was just tired of it, but I have gone back to cover for some guys who went on vacation, got married or some other reasons.

Anyway as the company works by the book, every month I worked some money was deduced from my pay for tax purposes, thing is I worked at the most for three months on any of these last 5 years, but I had somewhere about $1,500.00 deducted from my pay.

So today I went to the government tax office, I was just killing time, I knew I wasn’t getting it back, but once I explained to the girl who attended me, she said, OK I have you right here on the computer, we have received your money, but in fact you owe us money because we have to fine you for not making the tax declaration.

I told her I never reached the minimum for personal tax so I don’t have to file anything which is the rule, and she told me that didn’t matter, procedures are procedures, so instead of getting my money back I now have to pay money for money that was nearly stolen from me. I was getting mad and its not the girl’s fault so I left. And I’m not paying any fine either.

But I’m not working any more, I actually worked those days as a favor but I’m not giving my money away to the government. This reminds me of one pool shark I used to know, he’s already dead, we used to talk and once he told me,”Look once, when I was young I worked for two weeks at the cardboard company, so on the Saturday they paid me I took the money and went to a pool hall where I lost all of it. I learned my lesson, I have never worked again, it’s a foolish thing to do.”