Something to ponder

Two days ago, I was forced to face one of the things that I'm sure many people, especially Indonesian, clueless, yet know what's coming into him/her when facing this issue - that is "dealing with a tax officer".

This was not the first time I dealt with a tax officer, but it was definitely one that was more personal and involved more cash that I usually dealt with. Anyway, after reviewing the case, calculating the taxes involved, bargaining, it ended with something like this:

Me: gimana pak, tolong deh pak diturunin lagi. bantuin donk pak, client saya kan sebenarnya gak perlu bayar sebesar itu. Memang yang tentuin rate-nya siapa ya pak?

TO: ya, ratenya ditentuin pemerintah bu. Memang begitu. terserah ibu deh, pokoknya itu yang bisa saya bantu. kalo mau cepetan, kalo tunggu lagi saya gak jamin bisa tetap sama.

Me: baik lah pak. besok saya akan kontak bapak lagi.

TO: baik bu.

Isn't this sad and hopeless? I am very much wanted to do the right thing, not just for me, but for this country, volunteer as someone who can say NO to corruption or other form of it. But, again I failed.

We are so used in asking for "help" or "bantuan" from this people with authority in order to save money....and if we did not ask for help and went through the legal way, we felt like a stupid person, deceived by the system, "too naive" - that's what the old generation said. While I was negotiating with the tax officer, in the back of my head, I was thinking "why don't we just pay him already, stop negotiating, my client clearly can afford this...it's not small money but it's not that big that she cannot recover it in a few months". But then, my friend said if he were my client, he too wouldn't be willing to give the money to the officer without negotiating because part of the money was for him, not for the government or country, which it should have been.

Is what my friend said is true or is it just a reason to justify our doing as the other end of someone who's been corrupted?? Maybe we are willing to be corrupted for a greater benefit?
But somewhere out there, there are a lot of people who don't know that they've been corrupted and they are living in poverty because of it and I hate to think that somehow, I contributed to their suffering.