stakeholder

What can a shareholder do in the context of a company. A shareholder invests its money in a company. It's entitlement to a return is through dividends declared by the company. A creditor lends money to the company. It's entitlement to interest is based on what is contractually agreed. An employee works in a company and is entitled only to its salary at the end of each month.

What is the entitlement to the tax authorities? At which level should it be placed. The tax authorities collects tax based on profits made by the company. In terms of income tax, the tax authorities at best is at the same level as the shareholder. It is entitled to a share of the profits of the company. Is the tax authorities entitled to more than what the company earns? It is not even at the same level as the creditor. Why? Because it has not committed any resources to the company. When the revenue legislation places the tax collection at the profit level, it must have intended that the tax authorities can only come in to take a share at the profit level.

It does not have the right to tell the company how to run its business, just like the shareholder cannot tell the board of directors how to run the company. The tax authorities cannot step beyond the boundary of collection. If it in anyway, directs the company what to do, the tax authorities may have acted ultra vires the revenue legislation.

Monday

Today is monday. Monday truly is the toughest day of the week. I have often wondered how to make mondays appear unnoticed.

Some old timers like to work on sundays. Is it their way of pretending that sunday is in fact monday so that when monday appears, it does not seem like monday.

Others like to work on saturday mornings. I used to think it's to finish up the backlog for the workweek. Now I am wondering if in fact it is a tactic to cope with mondays by treating saturday as monday. In which case, one takes a break on tuesday, being sunday.

It probably is necessary to pretend in this fast paced working world against a possibly relaxing weekend. Maybe the gap between weekdays and weekends is so markedly different that one wonders if it is healthy.

The brain shuts down at the end of friday and enters into a carefree saturday and sunday. Suddenly it is sunday night again with monday looming ahead. And the technical brain has since gone for a holiday.

Some people go to the office early on monday to start the week early.

Today I tried harder to adapt to monday which turns out to be a disaster. It is a mistake to challenge monday head-on. Today I kowtow to the technical brain and how disastrous it is to charge it ahead whilst it is cranking. I suffered the rest of the day.

Today I come to the realisation that the old timers may be right. Take the soft approach. Go around monday. Pretend if you have to. Pretend today is tuesday and tomorrow is wednesday. It can only be better.