The Death of Taxes

by The card holder

No Representation of Taxation

Author's Note:

In case you missed it and are wondering what the hell I'm doing back here, I've returned to Fimfic in order to do commission work. Details here.

Also happy tax season

"Alright, I'm heading out, boss!"

"Bye, Anon! Have a good weekend!"

The sun had only just begun its western descent when Anon walked out of the post office, a bag of bits in his hand. His paycheck for the week of work he did.

He whistled a tune to himself as he walked back home. Ponies waved or shouted brief greetings as he passed, and he returned them without hesitation.

He was the only human in Ponyville, in Equestria for that matter, but he already felt right at home after only a year.

The memory of his first arrival to Equestria were still fresh in his mind. He was trying to get some sleep one night, and then he was abruptly in a forest right outside of Ponyville. He found out later that some villain had torn open multiple holes in reality, and his arrival was simply an incidental side effect.

He adapted quickly, however. His old life was already becoming a slog of monotony and boredom, with nothing truly tying him down, so he accepted the dimensional move with open arms. It didn't take long for him to meet the local magical authority, Twilight Sparkle, and from there it was all too simple to find a job for him in the mail room of the local post office, along with a house that he could call his own.

A house that he just now arrived at and entered. It wasn't anything special, really, but it was a roof over his head, so he couldn't complain much. The bills were much less stressful than back home, at least.

He walked over to his desk and emptied out the bag of bits. He pulled out a notebook and pencil and quickly counted up the golden coins, and then added to the running total he kept on the page.

As new as this world was for him, there were still several elements that were more than a little familiar to him, and so he made sure to keep track of all the money he spent and received. It was harder without any technology to do it for him, but he was still determined to not be caught off guard by one of the few universal constants he knew about:

Taxes.

Granted, he hadn't heard any of the ponies talk about them up to this point, but Anon was no fool. He had a feeling that the only reason he hadn't heard about them was because he was still relatively new to Equestria, so they were taking things easy on him until he got fully settled in.

But the anniversary of his arrival was fast approaching. He didn't know for sure if such a milestone would be the time when the town would come to collect their monetary dues from him, but he was determined to not be caught unaware and unprepared.

After some quick notebook calculations, he grabbed a few of the coins from his most recent paycheck and brought them across the room to a padlocked drawer. He unlocked it with the key he always kept on his person, and deposited the coins into the ever-growing stash of cash. Once it was safely locked again, he went back to his desk to pocket the remaining coins.

Now, even if the princesses themselves decided to hit him with a massive debt he accrued since his arrival, he'd be ready.

Well, mostly. The house was paid for by Twilight herself, but he could handle a house payment if it came down to that. Unlike taxes, at least that had an end point he could reach.

He was about to head out to get some dinner, but then Anon stopped when a thought occurred to him. It was a thought that hit him so abruptly that he had no choice but to say it out loud to his empty home.

"Wait, where would I even go to pay my taxes?"

Would it be by mail? Not impossible, but then that would only be for the announcement of the taxes he owed. He couldn't really send a huge box of bits through the mail.

The town hall, perhaps? But he had been there multiple times, and not once were taxes mentioned, either verbally or in signage.

After some more thinking, Anon lightly smacked himself in the face. "Oh, right, can just ask Twilight."

It wasn't very late in the afternoon, so he ventured out to seek answers from the purple pony princess.

---

Twilight Sparkle sipped her tea and read in silence. For the first time in a long time, she found herself in a peaceful moment. No friendship problems to solve, no world-threatening force breaking down her door, not even a failed experiment from Trixie and/or Starlight that she had to clean up. Days like these rarely came ever since she became a princess, so she cherished them all the more.

Her reading was interrupted by a knock on her door. "Come in!"

The door opened and revealed a familiar bipedal being. "Hey, Twilight, how you been?"

Twilight smiled and levitated her tea back to her table. "I've been doing just fine, Anon, how about you?"

Anon plopped down into a reading chair across from Twilight. "Oh, same as usual, still a bit reeling from being displaced from everything I knew. Work's been keeping me busy, though."

Twilight felt a small twinge of guilt, but laughed it off. Anon had a bit of a dark sense of humor sometimes, but she had grown quite used to it by now. She had already offered to find him a way back home many times, and every time he turned her down. "That's great to hear," she said. "It's sounding like you're fitting right in, now."

Anon kicked his feet up on the edge of the table where Twilight's tea sat. "Well, apart from all the magic and ponies and stuff, it's not that different from back home. Go to work, get paid, keep myself entertained, business as usual."

Twilight chuckled and levitated her tea for another sip. "It sounds like your world was a lot less eventful than around here."

Anon hesitated slightly. "As far as my own life, I guess you could say that. Most of the time, the worst thing I had to look forward to were bills and taxes."

Twilight paused mid-drink, and looked at Anon, confused. "Bills and what?"

Anon raised an eyebrow. "Taxes?"

After a moment of silence, Twilight asked, "Is that a human thing?"

Now it was Anon's turn to be confused. "Wait, don't you have taxes here?"

"I can't say we do..." Twilight trailed off.

Anon brought his feet off the table and leaned forward in his seat. He could feel the ghost of a smile growing on his face. "Really? No taxes here? "

"I've never heard of them," Twilight said. "What are they, exactly?"

"Oh, uh, money that goes to the government," Anon explained.

"Ooooh, I see," Twilight said, no longer confused. "You just have a different word for it than we do."

Anon's heart sank, and he did likewise into the chair. "Oh... I do have to pay those."

"I mean, you don't have to, I guess..."

Anon perked up. "What?"

"The donations made to the government are strictly voluntary," Twilight explained. "Ponies are free to give as much as they want to allow for everything in society to continue working as intended. They can even specify if they don't want their hard-earned bits going to something they don't like."

Anon blinked at her. "But... That makes no sense. You mean they can just not pay if they wanted?"

Twilight gave him a concerned look. "I mean, yes, but but almost everypony chooses to do it anyway for the good of everypony else."

Anon's mind was reeling. "So... everything's paid for voluntarily? Roads, schools, the guards' paychecks, everything?"

"Of course," Twilight said. "How else would it be handled?"

Anon began laughing and leaned back in his chair. "Oh man, that's way better than it was back home."

Twilight's concern only grew. "Anon... how were 'taxes' for you in your world?"

"Oh, they were awful," Anon said. "Every paycheck, everything you bought, the government took a percentage of it, just to put it to whatever they wanted."

Twilight gasped, and her book fell out of her telekinetic grasp. "That's... tyrannical!"

Anon shrugged. "Yeah, you're telling me, but that was life, and everyone had to deal with it."

Twilight got up from her seat. "I'm so sorry, I never knew you had to live in such a terrible place!" She bowed her head as she apologized. "If I knew, I wouldn't have asked if you wanted to go back!"

"Woah, woah, calm down," Anon said as he also stood up. "I mean, sure, the government wasn't that good, but it was still alright back home, I guess."

"But I would've sent you back to a dystopian mess!" Twilight said, now on the verge of tears.

Anon knelt down to get face to face with her. "Twilight, listen, it's wasn't that bad, okay? I was fine, and either way, I'm here now."

Twilight sniffled and rubbed a hoof against her eyes. "If you say so, Anon."

With the crying now averted, Anon stood back up and smiled. "Well, anyway, that's a load off my chest. Guess I can stop keeping track of my paychecks now."

Twilight tilted her head. "You've been tracking your pay? Just because you thought we'd take part of it from you?"

"I mean, yeah. That's how it worked back home, after all."

"But then wouldn't we simply arrange to have it taken out of your pay before you receive it, thus letting you not have to worry about it?"

Anon was about to retort, then stopped. "Huh... you know, I really should've thought about that, they do that back home, after all."

Twilight's eyes went wide. "I was making a joke! I didn't think that's actually what they did!"

Anon shrugged. "I mean, to be fair, from what I've seen of the average human, if the government didn't do that, there's a good chance a lot of people would simply forget to pay their part. Well," he used air quotes to emphasize, "'forget' to."

Twilight's purple fur went a bit pale. "So not only is your government tyrannical enough to take money from their people, the citizens are callous enough that they wouldn't willingly give money for the good of society?!"

"Hey, it wasn't all bad," Anon countered. "Every year we could fill out some tax paperwork and get a good chunk of that money refunded back to us." He paused. "For some reason. I'm still not sure exactly how that all worked."

Twilight recovered slightly. "You'd get some of that money back?"

"Oh yeah," Anon said. "How much varied a lot, but it was always nice to basically get free money."

Twilight frowned. "That almost sounds like a bribe to make people okay with paying their dues to society..."

Anon winced. "I mean, when you say it all like that, you make it sound like humans aren't very good at all."

Twilight paced back and forth. "From what you're telling me, it sounds that way. Does your entire species not share the same sense of friendship and love for each other that ponies do?"

Anon just looked at her. "Uh, well... I guess not, at least not on average."

Twilight put a supportive hoof on Anon's leg. "I am so glad you don't have to live in such a terrible place anymore."

Anon gently removed her hoof. "Being kinda overly dramatic there, don't you think, Twiggle?"

Twilight's somber attitude was replaced with impotent rage. "I told you to stop calling me that!"

Anon laughed and walked to the door. "Either way, thanks for the explanation. Now I have a bunch of money that I need to figure out what I'm doing with. Later!"

Twilight raised a hoof. "Anon, wait!"

But alas, her request went unheard, and the human closed the door behind him and left her alone in her room.

Twilight put a hoof to her chin and thought out loud. "I never knew Anon's world was like that... I should tell the others, see what they think."

She absentmindedly levitated her book from the floor to the table, then walked out the door.

---

With the knowledge that taxes in Equestria were entirely optional, Anon was ecstatic. He had the entire weekend to himself, as usual, so he spent the next couple days looking for things to spend it all on.

His first stop was a local furniture store. While he saw plenty of expensive items that he could've splurged on, there wasn't really anything that he wanted. He didn't want to annoy the clerk by window shopping for so long with no purchase, however, so he eventually settled on a new desk chair. Even that barely made a dent in his new spending money.

Next stop was a local souvenir shop, which contained all manner of nick-knacks and doodads. Once again, nothing jumped out at Anon as something he really wanted to own, and this time he was able to slip away from the shop owner's eye without too much awkwardness.

Unfortunately, it appeared that Equestria had far fewer consumer goods to indulge in than Earth, unless he wanted to splurge exclusively on furniture and random things. He considered using the money to go on vacation, but he wasn't quite sure of where he could go that would interest him, or would be different in any meaningful way from Ponyville.

After a while, Anon gave up on the search for a money sink and simply kept the remaining excess funds for emergencies. The idea to donate it to the government, as Twilight explained, still floated in the back of his mind, but Anon quickly shook those thoughts away. He was finally free of taxes, why would he willingly pay them now?

...maybe he'd chip some in every now and then. He wasn't a total monster, after all.

However, Anon was the only one trying to make plans over the weekend. Twilight Sparkle went back and forth between all of her friends, to regale them with Anon's tale of 'taxes' from his world. They were all equally shocked and horrified when they heard about it, but after much discussion, they all came up with a plan: something to help Anon feel even more welcome in Equestria, and perhaps to even remind him of home.

Unfortunately, there may have been some misunderstandings.

---

"I'm heading home, see you tomorrow, Boss!"

"Bye, Anon!"

Anon stretched once he was back into the afternoon sun. It was the start of yet another work week, but he was still giddy from the good news he received last Friday. He never realized quite how happy he would be to not have to pay taxes, but here he was, smiling like a fool in broad daylight.

Though, compared to how everyone else in Ponyville behaved most days, that just meant he fit right in.

After a leisurely stroll through the streets of Ponyville, making sure to greet everypony he came across, Anon arrived back at his humble home.

Unusually, there was a certain purple someone waiting for him at the door.

"Hey, Twilight," Anon greeted, still full of cheer. "What's up?"

"Hi, Anon," Twilight said. "You know, it's getting really close to your one year anniversary of arriving in Equestria."

"That it is," Anon said. "Funny how time flies."

Twilight chuckled. "Well, my friends and I were thinking, and we decided that we should celebrate the occasion. So..." With a theatrical flourish, she produced a postcard from behind her, showing a stylized drawing of Anon and expertly drawn text that simply read, "You're invited! This Wednesday!"

Anon took the card out of her levitation. "Aw, you guys didn't have to do that!"

"It's just our way to say thanks," Twilight said, "for being such a good friend even though you were brought here against your will."

Anon laughed. "Was that a dark joke? From you, Twilight?"

She smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of her head. "Guess I'm picking up some bad habits from you."

They shared another laugh, and Anon pocketed the invitation. "Consider me there, then."

Twilight nodded. "Alright, then! Come to the castle after work Wednesday, we'll be there!"

With that, she took flight, and Anon waved goodbye before he went inside. There, he pulled the invitation back out and studied it closely. He was particularly interested in the drawing someone made of him.

After some intense studying, he asked out loud, "Is my gut really that big?"

---

The next two days passed quickly, and after work on Wednesday he went straight for Twilight's castle after work. He had been to parties with her friends before, but this was the first time it had been a party entirely focused around him. He was very curious about how they would make such a party.

Anon let himself in, and was immediately assaulted with a chorus of "SURPRISE!" from Twilight and all of her friends.

He laughed and looked around the room. "Guys, it's not a surprise if you tell me..." His gaze fell on the banner at the end of the room, and he trailed off. "...about... it..."

He was expecting something like "Happy Anniversary" or maybe even some kind of sappy message for him. Instead, the banner proudly proclaimed "Happy Tax Day!" without a hint of irony.

Anon just looked slowly between the banner and the assembled ponies, completely befuddled. "Twilight," he asked slowly, "what is this?"

Twilight stepped forward from her friends. "So, I've been thinking a lot about our conversation last week, and how you had to pay those 'taxes' back home, so we decided that, to help you feel more at home, we'd try this!"

Anon blinked. "Uh... okay?"

Rarity stepped forward. "We understand that being forced to pay your donations is a terrible thing, but we figured that we could at least try and bring some of the positive aspects from your world over."

Anon looked at Twilight, confused. "Positive aspects?"

Pinkie Pie hopped forward. "Yeah, like the free money!"

Rainbow Dash hovered next to her pink friend. "Yeah, or the... uh..." She looked over at Twilight. "Was it just the free money?"

"Aaaanyway," Twilight said, "we wanted to try and recapture that one positive feeling you had about taxes, as a sign of our friendship together!"

The gears in Anon's head began to turn. "So... what exactly does that mean?"

"Means you get some free bits," Applejack interjected. "Somethin' we all pitched in for."

Anon was still greatly confused, and some part of him felt like he should be offended, but he wasn't about to turn down free money. "Alright then."

Twilight levitated a small box over to Anon. He accepted it, but hesitated before opening it. It felt way lighter than even a few bits would've been.

With everypony looking at him with anticipation, he had no choice but to open the gift. He put on a smile for them, but when he saw what the gift was, he had to force it to remain.

"It's... a gift card for that hayburger place."

"It's good for a hundred bits of food!" Twilight said, excited.

The others mirrored her excitement, and Anon felt trapped. "T-thanks, everyone, this is great!"

If any of them noticed his fake enthusiasm, they didn't show it, and instead cheered. Then Pinkie brought the cake out from... somewhere, and the party split apart into various conversations as everyone helped themselves.

Anon sighed and pocketed the gift card. These ponies didn't really understand taxes at all, but he still recognized that they wanted to do something nice for him, so he felt like he at least owed it to them to show appreciation.

Besides, he still got free cake out of the deal, so there's that.

While he helped himself to a slice (chocolate, his favorite, too), Twilight trotted up to his side. "So, what did you think?"

"Mmph." Anon finished his bite of cake and wiped the crumbs from his mouth. "This is good. A bit... unexpected, and maybe a little incorrect, but you got the spirit of it, I guess."

Twilight awkwardly kicked her hoof on the floor. "Yeah, sorry, I know the whole system where you come from isn't the best, but I figured this would still help you feel more at home, you know?"

Anon reached down and ruffled Twilight's mane. "You did alright, Twiggles."

Twilight batted his hand away. "Hey!"

Anon just laughed and ate another bite of cake.

Twilight took a bite from her own plate, then asked, "So, I'm curious, now that you know that government funding is optional here, how much did you plan to donate?"

Anon hesitated. "Honestly, no idea. It might take me a bit to really let it sink in, you know?"

Twilight frowned slightly. "But... you've been here for a year. Surely you have a good amount of bits saved up if you thought that we'd be forcefully collecting them."

"Don't call me Shirley."

"What?"

Anon shook his head. "Nevermind, you wouldn't get it." He finished his slice of cake and threw the plate into a nearby trash can. "Anyway, yeah, but I still need to figure that out. I'm still wired to keep exact track of my finances, you know?"

"I guess..." Twilight was about to say something else, but Rainbow Dash suddenly shouted from across the room.

"Hey, Anon, come over here, we're chugging hot sauce and I bet I can down more than you!"

Anon smiled and ran over. "Oh, you're on!"

Twilight sighed as her friends engaged in their tomfoolery. She knew Anon was a good person at heart (he wouldn't have fit in as well as he did if he wasn't), but she couldn't help but wonder about what he said. He came from a world where it was mandatory to make payments to the government, so it wasn't impossible that he might be too elated by the lack of compulsion for those payments to consider making them of his own free will.

Of course, she couldn't just force him to make donations, that would not only be cruel of her after explaining how they were optional in Equestria, but it would make her a massive hypocrite. There had to be other, more friendly ways to try and convince him, but what could she do...?

She mulled over this as the party continued. She watched Anon bounce from one activity with a friend to another, his face only slightly red from the earlier hot sauce duel with Dash. While he definitely fit in better with Dash and Pinkie's antics, he was still more than capable of holding conversations with Rarity and Applejack about most topics they could bring up. Despite her inner debate, she felt immensely proud that he was able to befriend ponies so easily, despite being an entirely different species. A species that is inherently less friendly than ponies, if the world he described was accurate.

While she watched, she noticed Fluttershy make her way over to her. "Everything okay, Twilight?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, less than convincingly.

Fluttershy leaned into her slightly. "Are you sure? You've been just sitting and watching Anon for the last ten minutes."

Twilight stiffened and looked at a clock on the wall. "Huh, has it been that long?"

"Is something wrong with Anon?" Fluttershy asked in her usual soft fashion.

Twilight was quick to shake her head. "No, no, nothing wrong with him, exactly, just... well, I'm worried about how he might be reacting, now that he knows that he doesn't have to pay for public services here in Equestria."

Fluttershy let out a thoughtful "Hmm," and joined her in watching Anon, who was now demonstrating some kind of finger trick to Trixie, who appeared to be shocked and amazed. After a moment, Fluttershy said, "Maybe we could try and make him realize how important they are, so that he ends up donating once he understands how important it really is?"

Twilight looked at the ceiling in thought. "But how would we do that?"

Fluttershy shrugged. "We could pull some harmless tricks to inconvenience him, make him believe that he'll solve those small problems by donating."

Twilight looked at Fluttershy in shock. "Are you suggesting we prank Anon, Fluttershy?"

"I mean, it's for the greater good," she defended herself. After a moment, she muttered, "Besides, I have to pay him back for what he did to Angel last Nightmare Night..."

"Ah, I see," Twilight said. "He's not still scared of cabbage, is he?"

"He's doing better now, thankfully." Fluttershy said.

"I'll talk to the others after the party," Twilight said. "With all of us working together, I'm sure we could convince Anon of the importance of donating to civil services."

Eventually, the party wound down with the sunset, and Anon bid everyone farewell and thanked them for the party. Once he was gone, Twilight rounded up all of her friends and explained the plan they'd enact, starting tomorrow.

As soon as everything was plotted, Twilight went to bed. She'd have to be up very early, after all.

Comments

[OoooyVeeeeey]

Twilight frowned. "That almost sounds like a bribe to make people okay with paying their dues to society..."
Lol "dues to society". Maybe if embezzling, bailouts, corruption, and exportation of jobs to countries with less human rights and lower wages are good for society I guess.

[horses are fuckin weird]

Taxes being a thing in Equestria sounds just as unlikely as murder does there. Love stories like these that remember the world of MLP is a lot more innocent.

[White seal]

More plz?