Task causes COMMOTION: Freelancers are „evil dissatisfied tax evaders“

In the second round of qualifications for the online programming competition for high school students, a task appeared in which freelancers are called „some evil dissatisfied people“, and the state is „kind to its citizens“.

„The state of Serbia is known in the world for its exceptional care for its citizens and for providing unlimited employment opportunities to each of us. However, as it usually happens, there are some evil dissatisfied people, who we will call freelancers for the purpose of the task. All freelancers live in the state of Serbia, while earning money outside the country. An IT freelancer earns Pi dollars a year. Freelancers are trying in every way to circumvent paying taxes to the state, that is, they avoid paying part of their dubious salary into the state budget. However, even this time, Serbia has decided to be kind to its citizens, so it will introduce a fixed tax rate for all freelancers. Of course, freelancers would not be freelancers if they did not complicate matters. They realized that if the tax was too high, they would not work at all (they would live on thin air), just so that the state would not earn a dollar from them. More specifically, if the tax is strictly higher than the Pi percentage, an IT freelancer will give up working. We, honest, well-meaning and satisfied citizens, are interested in how much the state can earn in dollars if it sets the tax optimally,“, it is stated in the abovementioned task, the Danas daily reports.

The dilemma is whether the task is a hymn of praise to the authorities or an irony and an intelligent way to criticize the state.. A computer science teacher from a high school in Belgrade told the Danas daily that he believed that it was the latter.

„I believe that the person who wrote the task wanted to create a real mathematical problem and a high-quality task, but also to mock the senseless decision about retroactive tax collection,“ says the teacher.

The Association of Mathematicians of Serbia confirms for the Danas daily that the above-mentioned task appeared in the second qualifying round, but that it was very quickly replaced. Marko Savic, chairman of the competition commission, explains for the Danas daily that the tasks are prepared by the commission appointed by the DMS. The commission, as he says, is composed mostly of young people who do the entire task of organizing the competition on a voluntary basis.

„The text in the abovementioned task was written by a young member of the commission, who I do not want to name, considering the fact that it was written without any other intention but to be funny. Some freelancers interpreted that text as an attack on them, not realizing that the intention was a joke. Due to the great amount of work and haste in the preparation of the competition, the review was not done properly and that task was used at the competition,“ notes Savic.

He concludes that the text is inappropriate and that it should not have been used at the competition, but he notes that there was no bad intention.

Izvor: Danas

Foto: Pexels