As Applejack filled out the columns in her book, she couldn't help but think that she was forgetting something. The nagging feeling turned into real pain, however, when she realized what she was forgetting. Underneath the latest receipt that she entered into her records was a stack of forms labeled Canterlot Revenue Annual Paperwork.
"Taxes!" exclaimed Applejack, bringing a forehoof to her forehead in frustration.
Deep underneath, Applejack had no issues paying her taxes. After all somepony has to pay to provide the "free" education Ponyville Elementary provided Apple Bloom, to maintain the roads between her farm and Ponyville proper, and to make sure that the brass band is ready in case another horde of parasprites attacked Ponyville. But the forms! Oh Celestia the forms!
In theory, taxes are simple. Say, Rainbow Dash gets paid a certain number of bits every year by the Ponyville City Hall to lead the weather team. She then pays a percentage of those bits to Canterlot and a smaller percentage to Ponyville so the Princesses and the mayor can provide vital services to Equestrian and Ponyville. For example, raising and lowering the sun and moo.
However, just like how Rainbow Dash is a very straightforward pony, her tax situation is also very straightforward. Pinkie Pie has a slightly more complicated situation: since her living space was provided by her employer she has to fill out a special form that calculated what she owe to Canterlot Revenue once her living costs and rent were quantified and properly taxed. Of course---and Applejack winced at this---Pinkie Pie never filled out said form, mostly out of a lack of attention span. Pinkie Pie doing her taxes, can you imagine?
It gets even more complicated with ponies like Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle. Being Princess Celestia's favorite student and Princess Luna's first friend in a thousand years did not exempt Twilight Sparkle from filling out the dreaded Canterlot Revenue Annual Paperwork. In fact, it meant that she had to fill out more forms since she was a student and had a complicated living/working situation that spanned both Canterlot and Ponyville. Thankfully, Twilight liked filling out forms.
Ironically, Fluttershy's tax situation was even more complicated despite not technically having a job. Every year, she had to get her animal friends to testify that the services she provided to the animals of Ponyville were in fact not for profit (and often times free). Since almost all her work was done on a bartering system quantifying her income and expenses every year was practically a nightmare.
Every year Fluttershy's animal friends spend days helping her with her tax forms, each animal lending her their specific strength. Angel bunny was an expert at proofreading, making sure everything was perfect; the squirrels and chipmunks filed and organized, climbing through bookshelves expertly; the ducks say around and quacked since they were not very good with office work. Most importantly, the elephant remembered everything.
Yet of all her friends, only the complexity of Rarity's tax intricacies rivaled Applejack's. Being the owner of a successful business Rarity had to be organized and attentive to detail, both thankfully being among the unicorn's many positive traits. Through the year, Rarity recorded every sale, kept every invoice from every supplier and smoothed out every irregularity in her accounts like a steamy iron preparing a ream of cotton for her artistic touch. However successful Rarity's business was, though, it was a simple single pony proprietorship compared to the conglomerate that was Sweet Apple Acres.
With both retail and wholesale stretching across Ponyville, Canterlot, Cloudsdale and even Appleloosa, Sweet Apple Acres was a giant in the agricultural industry. Apples, of course, were not the only things the family sold. There were pastries, jams, and ciders (in three different varieties: original, mulled, and sparkling). In addition to all the tax irregularities that arose from a major business, Applejack ran a farm. That meant that she was entitled to a menagerie of refunds and exceptions, as long as she also paid for the appropriate licenses and filled out another mountain of paperwork.
The most frustrating thing for Applejack was that she wasn't willing to lie. There were no rounding, no omissions, only facts. Applejack stubbornly insisted that every single entry had to be perfect and refused to be a single bit off. She knew that she could have easily lied: the Canterlot Revenue Enforcement Agents Ministry had enough on their hooves with the fancy ponies of Canterlot and Manehatten lying through their teeth, omitting millions of bits of profit every year. They'd never come to Ponyville! And if they did they'd go after Filthy Rich before they went after anypony else---AJ knew, for a matter of fact, that Rich not only lied on his forms, he paid other people to lie for him.
Applejack sighed, letting it carry away the frustration she felt. There ain't no way she'd ever lie on her tax forms. Not because she was the bearer of the Element of Honesty. No, she had always been honest even before Twilight Sparkle arrived and the Element itself chose her. If she lied, she'd be dishonoring the Apple family, and family was more important than even the fate of the world.
Once again, the earth pony found her attention drifting to the book her parents penned. "Ain't no way but the hard way," she said to herself. Focusing herself once again, Applejack sat up, took a sip of the cooled mulled cider and went back to work.