It’s not unusual to hear reports of corruption in tax offices in some states in India. Taxpayers have come to understand that it’s a way of life, including regular demands by public officials to pay bribes, sometimes holding tax records hostage until the bribes were paid. Well, some taxpayers. Two farmers in Basti, located in northern India, decided that they were officially fed up. And they did something about it: they dumped three sacks of snakes on the floor in the tax office. The sacks contained about forty snakes, including four deadly cobras.
Clerks at the office reacted the way that my mother would: they climbed on tables to escape the slithering reptiles. Fortunately, there were no injuries and all of the snakes were recovered. The two farmers, identified as Hukkul Khan (a snake charmer) and Ramkul Ram, have not yet been apprehended.
As a tax professional, I can’t say that I recommend this course of action. But it certainly got attention.
You can watch the video of the incident here.
