“You can have a Lord, you can have a King, but the man to fear is the tax
collector.” This proverb about the tax collector was inscribed on several clay tablets
excavated at Lagash, in Sumer, the fertile area between the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers in what is now known as Iraq. The clay tablets date back some six thousand
years (Adams 1999:2–3). Times have not really changed! Most taxpayers still fear
the tax man and for good reason