Taxes Part 2: Swallow the Pill
Assuming that you’ve at least skimmed the Part 1, I’ll only briefly recap. First, I accept that taxes are an important of modern society. That being said, taxation introduces inefficiencies into the market economy. Also, by their very nature, governments don’t have the proper incentives in place to efficiently raise and spend tax revenue. Often it’s in their best interest to be outright wasteful.
Obviously, some major changes need to be made to America’s system of taxation. I don’t see that happening anytime soon so I focus on what we, as individuals, can do. If you’d like to do some reading on tax reform I recommend Steve Forbes’ The Flat Tax Revolution and The Fair Tax Book by Neal Boortz and John Linder. Both are viable options for complete overhauls of the tax code. I tend to agree with Boortz and Linder that getting rid of income tax altogether and making a complete switch to a consumption tax would maximize tax revenue and strengthen the economy by filtering out much of the static caused by taxation. Sadly, Boortz and Linder also explain why neither of these common sense solutions will ever by applied. Major reform would dramatically reduce the size of government. There would be little need for the IRS or for many of the businesses built around helping corporations and individuals navigate the convoluted tax code. No self respecting politician would vote thousands of people out of a job, even if it was in the best interest of the entire country. On a more general level, if politicians actually fixed problems they’d be out of a job, so can we really expect them to accomplish much?
Sounds disheartening, but all is not lost. We can leverage some of the tools each individual has to at least shift the conversation toward true reform. It’s my belief that our most important tools are freedom of choice and the right to vote.
By “the right to vote” I’m not speaking of going to the public library the first Tuesday of November and punching holes in a slip of paper. While I go through this process every year, I feel that this form of voting is nothing more than a placebo. Once the hole has been punched and the “I Voted” sticker’s been strategically placed for others to see, the majority of people go about their lives thinking that they’ve somehow fulfilled their civic duty. Statistically this one little vote is meaningless and has no chance of changing the outcome of any election. It’s the way we live our daily lives that actually has the ability to stimulate societal change. The vote that I am speaking of is the use of our hard-earned money. Each dollar we spend is a vote cast. These little dollar votes compound and become exponentially more powerful than any vote cast for, or against, an issue on the public ballot. Also, because “time is money,” I’d suggest that how we spend our time is of equal import.
The best example of monetary voting is the selection of our residence. Housing is generally the largest expense anyone accrues. Also, the communities we decide to live in are where we spend the majority of our time. By purchasing a house, paying property taxes and supporting local businesses we are funding the local government. If we don’t like the local laws, tax rates, school districts or general way of life, we vote against it by moving to another city. Of course we should try to get involved in the local community and influence it for the better, but in the end the best way to vote is to move. Communities are then forced to compete for residents. If you choose to live in an area where you dislike the political atmosphere you’re using your money to vote in favor of issues that you disagree with and you’ll just have to learn to live with the corresponding cognitive dissonance. Believe me, that can be hard.
This principle applies to everything we spend our time and money on; from the TV programs we watch, to the products we purchase. It’s applicable on the local, state, and national level. If we don’t like the values portrayed in a television show, we vote against it by not watching. If we don’t like the direction our country is headed politically, we can relocate. When nobody watches the TV program it will get canceled and when people start leaving the county hand over fist, the government will eventually be forced to change. Basically, put your money (and time) where your mouth is.
I recently read Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience. It really opened my eyes to how one should use their own freedom of choice to voice dissatisfaction with both governmental and societal rules. If you’ve never read Civil Disobedience, I’d suggest you stop reading this post, and take the time to do so now. It is just as applicable today as it was in 1849.
Thoreau’s theme is essentially that when we disagree with government, or society, the best way to protest is to simply refuse to participate. Because it’s Black History Month, an example that comes to my mind is Rosa Parks. Rosa chose not to participate in the societal rules dictating that Blacks were to sit at the back of the bus. It was small, non-violent, choices like this that eventually changed the rules of society. The same can be done for taxation.
Am I saying that we should all stop paying taxes? No. What I am saying is that in order to keep the government in check, there has to be a way, short of leaving altogether, to opt out in protest. Current laws require that tax, Medicare and Social Security payments be taken before wages are distributed. This ensures that the government gets its money. It also removes the freedom to choose from the equation. Having payroll taxes taken out automatically also removes much of the feeling of ownership in that money. The government would surely be held more accountable if the entire gross wage was paid to every worker and it was their monthly responsibility to personally write a check for taxes. It wasn’t that long ago that payroll taxes weren’t taken out automatically, and the government found it hard to collect its revenue.
Another added disadvantage of the automatic payroll tax is that it confuses the individual as to what their actual tax rate is. Do you know how much of each dollar earned you pay in taxes? On top of that, do you know exactly how much you pay in sales or property tax each year? Generally when we spend money, we understand the value before we pay. Taxes are the direct opposite, making it hard to estimate the value of what is paid.
If it were easier to opt out of paying taxes wouldn’t everyone stop paying? Not at all. Refusing to pay taxes is, and always will be, against the law. There would still be heavy punishments for those who chose not to pay. The punishments would be both social and legal. That’s how the theory of Civil Disobedience is applied. Those who choose to protest do so at a high cost, making the protest meaningful to them on a personal level. In order for this protest to be meaningful to society, many thousands of people would have to participate. When just one African-American woman refuses to stay at the back of the bus, nothing happens. When they all refuse, things change.
In conclusion, simply going to the polls and voting is more like taking a placebo than enacting change. Taxes are much the same. Most people pay their 40% and feel they’ve given back to society in some meaningful manner. We can either ingest these pills and continue on our way, or we can use our remaining time and money to vote for what we truly believe in. If the time comes that we feel government has overstepped its bounds it might be time to stop participating in the system.
Personally, I don’t feel that time is now and I don’t generally sympathize with people who go around touting that they don’t pay their taxes because I feel that most of them are stupid. That being said, I think we need to work toward a system where everyone understands exactly how much they pay in taxes before they actually pay it, everyone has to physically pay it themselves, and the majority of taxes are paid on a state level. This would enable individuals to better asses the value they are getting out of the system and relocate (vote) accordingly.
