This is a real letter which somebody posted to the Taxation office
in IRELAND explaining why they had not paid Tax for several years. This is alleged to be the actual text of a letter received by the
Revenue Commissioners from a Co. Longford, Eire farmer in reply to an
income tax demand.

Dear Sirs,
Your letter arrived this morning in an open envelope and it would
have given the son and myself pleasure had it not revived in us a
melancholy reflection of what has gone before. You say you thought the
account could have been settled long ago, and you could not understand
why it hadn't.
Well, here are the reasons:

In 1987 I purchased a hay shed on credit.
In 1988 I bought a combine harvester, a manure spreader, two
horses, a double barrel shifter, two cows and ten razor back pigs, also
on credit.
In 1989 the bloody hay shed burnt to the ground leaving not a damn
thing. I got no insurance either as the bloody premium had lapsed. One
of the horses went lame and I loaned the other one to my brother who
starved the poor bugger to death.

In 1990 my father died and my brother was put away when he tried to
marry one of his sheep named Hilda. A knacker got my daughter pregnant
and I had to pay him a grand to stop him becoming one of my relatives.
In 1991 my son got the mumps which spread to his balls and he had
to be castrated to save his life. Later in the year I went fishing on
the Shannon and the bloody boat overturned, drowning two of my sons,
neither being the fucking eunuch who was by now wearing his sisters
make-up and dresses. Not long after he emigrated to America with the
new parish priest. They are now married and trying for children.

In 1992 my wife ran away with a pig jobber from Drumlish and left
me with new born twins as a souvenir and I had to get a housekeeper, so
I married her to keep down expenses. I had a hell of a job getting her
pregnant (to qualify for more children's allowance). I went to see the
doctor. He advised me to create some excitement at the crucial moment so
that night I brought my shotgun to bed and when I thought the moment was
right I leaned out of bed and shot both barrels through the window, the
wife shit the bed, I ruptured myself, and the next morning I found I had
blown both doors off the barn, shot my best dairy cow and killed the
fucking knacker who was in the hay loft with my daughter trying to get
more money out of me, which he did because I had to pay for the fucker's
funeral expenses.

The next year, 1993, someone cut the balls off my prize bull,
poisoned the water, and set fire to the house. I was bolloxed and took
to the drink and did not stop until all I had left was a pocket watch
and a weak bladder. Winding the watch and running for a piss kept me
busy for a time. This year I took heart again and bought (on the hire
purchase) a bulldozer, tractor and trailer and a new bull. Then the
Shannon flooded and washed the bloody lot away, my second wife got V.D.
from a land inspector and my last surviving son died from wiping his
arse on a poisoned rabbit I had put down for dogs who were worrying the
sheep.

It surprises me very much that you say you will cause trouble if I don't
pay up. If you can think of anything I've missed I should like to know
about it. Trying to get money out of me will be like trying to poke
butter up a hedgehog's hole with a red hot needle. I'm praying for a
cloud of cat's shit to pass your way and I hope it will fall on you and
the bastards in your office who sent me this final demand.
Yours for more credit
John Murphy