The Tax Collectors’ Chair

Having spent some time studying tax law and procedure and the efforts that taxpayers take to avoid paying taxes, I am often still surprised by the creativity of taxpayers – especially wealthy taxpayers. I came across this example in Galveston, Texas.

Galveston is an island in the Gulf of Mexico that is located a few miles off of the coast of Texas. Before the turn of the last century Galveston was considered the equivalent of modern day Wall Street. The wealthy citizens of Galveston erected mansions, most of which have since been destroyed by floods or hurricanes. This story comes from one of the surviving mansions. I think that the mansion is called the Ashton Villa. It is a historic home that is open to the public for tours.

The house is rather unspectacular by today’s standards. When you walk into the house you are greeted by the typical fare – a somewhat nice looking staircase, a chandelier, older looking pictures, etc. What is most interesting is the calling card basket and the chair that sits nearby.

The tour guide explains the calling card was the only way that one could gain the presence of the original inhabitants of the house. Southern society had rules of etiquette that spelled out how the cards were to be answered and rejected (apparently there was a modern-day “Etiquette for Dummies” book that was mass marketed to wealthy southerners). The process went somehting like this: servants would deliver these cards to the doormen and the doormen would place the cards in the basket by the door. The lady of the manor would review the cards every now and again, fold them in a way that specified whether the offer to visit was accepted or rejected and specify the date and time for the visit, and then the doorman would return the card to the appropriate would-be visitor. This process ensured that no one other than the house resident and the invited guest – not even the doormen – would know when and if the visit would take place. This procedure also ensured that no one would show up for an unscheduled appointment. Unsolicited guests were promptly turned away.

That brings us to the chair. The chair is the only real piece of furniture in the room. The chair is made of a beautiful polished wood. It has a nice dark brown stain. But there are some peculiarities about the chair. The seat of the chair has a sharp raised crevice running through the middle in the most obscene manner and the backrest is bent outward in the most unergonomic way. Further, the chair has only one small armrest. The whole contraption is polished and it slants forward at a steep angle. It is a very odd-looking piece of furniture.

I could not resist asking the tour guide why anyone would have such a contraption in his or her home. Could the original inhabitants not afford proper furniture? The tour guide explained that, given the calling card system, the only person who would show up without an appointment would be the tax collector. So the tax collector would be offered a seat in the chair and would be left waiting for several hours. The hope was that the tax collector would simply go away. So the chair was a tax savings measure – a tax savings measure that, according to the tour guide, was widely used in wealthy Southern homes before the turn of the last century.

Tax savings measures employed by the wealthy today are a little more sophisticated. Nonetheless, some of these sophisticated modern-day tax savings measures are premised on the very same principles underlying the tax collectors’ chair.