One Hundred Years Of Solitude

A new TV series based on the famous book by Gabriel García Márquez has appeared on Netflix. Definitely recommended for your Christmas holidays. What does this have to do with taxes?

A Treadmill

I certainly don't want to hurt the feelings of Márquez fans, but I still remember the moments when I would spent hours on MyFitness club treadmill roll while listening to this seemingly endless audiobook, and I never quite understood why I was doing it (I mean - going through the entire book). The biggest problem was remembering and not mixing up the names of the different changing characters. Who was born, who died, who loved whom, who slept with whom. And so for 100 years of solitude.

The Podcast

The book, by the way, was recommended to me by Tax Stories podcast guest Leopoldo Parada from Chile, who said it had a significant impact on his life - to not be afraid to develop his own writing style, to create emotions, to be simple and not be afraid to entertain. The book opened his eyes to the creative side of life.

Dagnija

A few days ago I noticed a post on one of the social networks by always active and inspiring Dagnija Lejina's - an exclamation of delight about Márquez and the new series One Hundred Years of Solitude on Netflix. The book has been made into a film for the first time - to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the great man winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Everything Fell Into Places

I have to admit, I watched all 8 episodes of the series in one stroke of breath and my perception of the work changed completely. Visually, a lot of things matched my imagination. It's brilliant, putting into places the different pieces of a puzzle that I sort of lost when going through the book amongst the carousel of endless characters, and thus creating a pile of multi-layered reflections. Following the creation of the village of Macondo, along with ever new discoveries of science and the nature of the world, through 7 generations of the Buendía family tree, one can follow how and why relationships and society are formed. Until the Colombian state administration, laws, property rights, power struggles, electoral fraud, civil war... business and taxes enter the village.

About Taxes

Even the subject of taxation comes up, which is about .. the need to finance the war. Then the village manager announces in a local bar that everyone now has to pay 15% for every drink they have at the bar, 20% of the price they pay for sleeping with the local beauties, and 8% on the profits of local businesses. This is followed by an indignant question from one of the prostitutes - why this discrimination against the pleasures of love? Interestingly, at one point the collector finds out that nothing material has ever been collected.

It's Not Just The Story of the Buendía Family Tree

Thus the novel is also about the reality of life that no one so far has been able to answer some of the eternal questions raised in the story, including:

• Why different tax rates for different types of income?

• Why exactly these rates?

• Why exactly these taxes?

• Will the collected taxes be used wisely?

• Why should the war be financed at all?

  • in other words, is life more valuable than ideology, freedom?

  • "You should rather work than play war", the eldest of the Buendía brothers remarked.

• Would taxes be better collected if people had a choice on how the taxes are used? etc.

By the way, the series will have a 2nd season with 8 more episodes..