Black-List the Tax Shirkers

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Black-List the Tax Shirkers is a letter written by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in the Daily Express No. 8305 on 7 december 1926.


Black-List the Tax Shirkers

Daily Express No. 8305 (p. 8)

From Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

To the Editor of the "Daily Express."

Sir, — The hotels on the South Coast are at present half empty, while those of the Riviera are. I believe, filling fast. ls there not some sort of moral obligation in these days of economic pressure for those who make money in this country to spend it in this country?

I would go the length of stopping by law this dangerous leakage. Let there be a heavy poll tax upon those who go abroad, unless they can give good reasons of health or of business for their absence from this country.

As to the shirkers who live in the Channel Islands, or abroad, in order to escape taxation, and so put a heavier burden upon the shoulders of their more honest and patriotic fellow-countrymen, their names should be black-listed in the "Gazette," and it still recalcitrant, they should be deprived of all rights of citizenship.

The times are serious, and drastic methods are needed.

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
Crowborough, Sussex.