NEWSPAPER COLUMNS
 ¶ Most Recent
¶ Miscellany
|
SUNDAY SPECTATOR
June 12, 2011
The stupidity tax
It is assumed, by most people of the Canadian persuasion, that the new Harper government, like the old, wants to cut taxes. Indeed, a lot of us voted for it with that loose idea in the backs of our minds. Such ideas never survive contact with the light. No government wants to reduce taxes; that would only reduce their power. Governments only reduce taxes under serious compulsion, and then, from their bankers, not from any coalition of voters."Give me taxes or give me death," Patrick Henry never said before the Virginia House of Burgesses. He asked for liberty, instead, which was odd, because the man was not then in bondage. Except, of course, for the sort of bondage in which everyone lives under organized government - generally preferable to the sort of freedom offered by states like Somalia, or (now) Yemen, or (soon) Libya, where organized government ceases to be. The American revolutionists amuse me, retrospectively, for their naive opposition to a British imperial regime imposing taxes that were, by any later standards, derisory. Moreover, Westminster offered value for money, through the Royal Navy, which preserved British North America's narrowly provincial English-speaking subjects from any threat of invasion; and in return for piddling excise on luxury goods, such as tea. A bargain. Everyone should wish to live in a protectorate under benign and distant British rule, of the sort offered toward the end of the 18th century. Fools don't appreciate what they have. Today's column does not propose to re-fight the Revolutionary War, however. My point is only that you need a democracy to achieve extremely high tax levels; and mass voting to install the politicians who will "progressively" impose them. It's when "rep by pop" is finally achieved, that the tax burden grows, like the glaciers in an ice age. Government now invades every aspect of private life, and the bill for this is "shared by everybody," the way bar tabs are on a drinking spree. (The more you drink, the better it looks.) A few years ago I noticed a Canadian government announcing that federal taxes had been cut. I get this thing called a pay stub, however, and couldn't help noticing after the next Jan. 1st that the amount of money trickling down to me through the various revenue filters was less than it had been before. Were the politicians lying? Of course not. It was inconceivable that anyone in the Chrétien government would tell a lie. Clearly I did not understand the complexity of those revenue filters. (No one does.) The average Canadian citizen would rather think that he is stupid, than entertain the obnoxious notion that someone in authority is lying to him. I call this the "stupidity tax," and it is imposed by Nature. This tax is applied in myriad forms. Let me give but one example. I recently purchased a dozen (let us say) widgets, for household use. They were on "special." Realizing that I would need many more, I went back to the store and bought another dozen dozen; yet without having used any of the first 12. They all turned out to have a design flaw, easily detected. But they were also "sales final," so I calculate that in this case my stupidity tax was assessed at approximately 92 per cent of the cumulative purchase price. Those who have studied the occult science of Economics, or Darwinism for that matter, will realize that this stupidity tax was not assessed upon me alone. By paying out for their trashy goods, I had helped to keep the over-advertised Wonder Widgets in business - at cost to every future customer. And I had proportionally reduced the market share of the venerable Dominion Widget Corporation, who make well-designed, reliable widgets from their long experience in widget manufacturing, though at a slightly higher price. A lot of taxes are like that. People think they are getting a bargain, by voting for services that appear to be subsidized by other taxpayers, and must therefore be cheaper. Smart people contrive to avoid the taxes. The politicians' job is then to arouse all the stupid people to vote for new ways to punish the smart people who are gaming the system. As a result, everyone pays a constantly increasing stupidity tax. The way to pay the highest taxes is to keep a steady job. This makes you a sitting duck to the tax authorities. It is why governments sincerely care about the official employment level. The way to reduce taxes is to enter the grey zone of free enterprise, where income can be moved persistently out of the taxman's reach. Which is why governments empower tax officials to audit the enterprising into extinction. So how could we reduce taxes, across the board? I don't know. I don't know of a single democracy where this has ever been done, except in a misleading, superficial, and/or temporary way. It is a problem worth working on, however. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
|
Top