A British Yid tells me, “I have a business in London. Not long ago, during the busiest season of the year — a season which normally gives me enough business to pay off all my bills for the year — I received a letter stating that I have to pay off my entire tax arrears from the previous year within a short period of time.
"This was a double problem for me. Firstly, I didn’t have the time to deal with it now. Just going through all the calculations was the work of a few days, time which I did not have during this busy season. Secondly, at the time I didn’t have the money they were demanding. Even if I could have squeezed it out, it would have choked me since I needed liquid cash during the season to make purchases.
"This letter, in short, spelled disaster for my business.
"In this forlorn state of mind, I went to daven Mincha. In middle of davening, a Yid passed by with the Rav L’hoshia pushka and I threw in a nice donation. The amount was so large that the Yid thought I must have made a mistake and he stared at me. I waved him on, explaining that I have my accounts with Rav Yeshayala.
"From then on, I no longer heard from the tax authorities again — until the busy season ended. After the season, a second letter arrived in the mail, along with a reminder that I owed them money. The latest sum, however, was far less than what they had asked for the previous time. "There is no natural explanation for this," the Yid concluded.
