TAXES | GOVERNMENT | BUSINESS | WINDOWS| ENTREPRENEURSHIP
The Tax on Windows
Can taxes become immoral?
To what extent can governments act to the detriment of those they represent? Up to what limit they must abide by the laws that the former established?
Can you go to jail for not complying with any of these laws that harm you?
With the law and the club on their side
In many modern and advanced states, it is a crime to fail to pay “your” taxes or not to “correctly” report them to a government official. The payment of such a severe offense often means going to jail.
Indeed, the tax area is one of the few in which governments are very efficient.
It seems that the bureaucratic and political classes, hand in hand, stop being your servants at a certain point to take on a life of their own, independent of the citizens. At that point, they start fighting for their survival. And they do so with the law and the club on their side.
Not being able to produce wealth, these classes demand from the citizens, the real producers, the resources the later have earned with so much effort.
This claim, which can border on robbery, is legal and seeks to reverse the roles of the so-called social contract that Locke enunciated: it intends for citizens to serve the State, that is, the bureaucratic and political classes that run it.
Paraphrasing Judge Hand, anyone is free to arrange his affairs in the way that best suits his personal, family, business, and financial interests, as long as it does not contravene the laws of the countries with which he interacts.
A brief review of the history of taxes
Let’s consider some of them by way of example, but be sure to observe:
- the helplessness in which citizens are placed
- the object of the tax, which is generally of first necessity
- the tenacity of governments to demand payment of the taxes they created
The cooking oil tax
It was established in Ancient Egypt by the Pharaoh, who had its usufruct’s exclusive monopoly. The law stipulated that people could not reuse it and, to ensure its compliance, there was a government “department “composed of thousands of officers deployed throughout the empire.
The air tax
It is in force since mid-2014 at the Maiquetía International Airport, Venezuela. You must pay for the ozonated air conditioning that circulates in the facility. What if you prefer not to breathe that air or if the equipment is damaged? You pay the same.
The tax on (human) urine
Paid for by all under Vespasian.
The rain tax
It is paid by citizens of Maryland, USA since 2013, according to the area of ”impervious surfaces” that their homes or businesses have: roofs, patios, parking lots, entrances, sidewalks …
City and bed tax
It is equivalent to 5% of the stay paid by visitors arriving in Berlin, Aachen, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Hamburg, and Lübeck.
TV tax
This law will be 100 years old in 2023, in the UK. You will tell me that 97 years ago there were no televisions. It doesn’t matter: tax laws have the characteristic of being flexible and adaptable to the times. By this “TV law,” everyone must pay for it: neither those who don’t have a TV nor the blind escape.
A fleet of TV detector vans is responsible for scanning homes and businesses to ensure compliance and payment of the tax’s annual £ 145.5.
But one of the most iconic and long-lived taxes, which best exemplifies what I have been talking about, is the so-called window tax, which consisted of six tax laws, each one brought to life when the previous one died, and thus, the tax was “renewed” in time, just under a different name.
The window tax
- 1660. The English government, eager for monetary income, calculated to collect enough money with a tax on wood-burning fireplaces, widely used due to the climate in that part of the world. It lasted 29 years, and its abolishment came because it was extremely unpopular.
- To make up for the “loss,” the government created a tax on windows (who doesn’t have several in their home or business?). To not be suffocated by the law, the citizens chose to wall up the windows with bricks.
- To make up for the “loss,” the government created a tax on bricks (per unit). To not be bricked up by the law, the manufacturers offered the citizens larger bricks so that, with less quantity, they could do the job.
- To make up for the “loss,” the government changed the law and stopped charging per unit. Instead, the excise taxed people on the size of the bricks they bought. Homes and businesses were now dreary and dark places in broad daylight, so candles’ consumption soared. People had finished walling up their windows and thus stopped paying taxes on windows and bricks. Or so they believed.
- To make up for the “loss,” the government created a tax on candles. The law prevented their homemade or industrial manufacture unless the interested person purchased a license and paid the due taxes. To not be obscured by the law, citizens decided to paper their walls with light-colored wallpaper, thereby alleviating the lack of light.
- To compensate for the “loss,” in 1712, the government created a wallpaper tax. It was not abolished until 1836, and condemned to death penalty those who ignored it. Being papered by the law, the citizenry was left without defense.
The reduced amount of natural heat, light, and ventilation eventually created a public health problem. The abolishment of the perverse window tax finally came 151 years after its creation.
Temporary taxes
The ruling classes create them to meet a specific need, with the idea of eliminating them … never. Such was the case with the cowardice tax, designed to charge those unwilling to accompany King Henry I to his wars, but lasted 300 years.
The one that taxed playing cards collected money for the British government since 1588 and did not end until 1960. The tax was twelve times the price of the cheapest cards produced or one-and-a-half times that of the best.
This other one required the citizen’s money to pay for the building of a ballpark in Washington. The stadium would convince the Montreal Expos to move there. At the cost of USD 784 million, it was a heavy load on the back of many. But once the Washington Nationals’ park was ready, the tax continued to be paid: public officials could not resist continuing to impose it.
What to do?
Ask yourself these questions:
• Do you live where you should live?
• Have you planned your business, financial, and tax life?
Judge Learned Hand, in the Helvering v. Gregory case (69 F.2d 809, 810–11 [2nd Cir. 1934]) said:
Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes. Over and over again, the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.
structure (from Latin structūra):
3. f. Distribution and order in which a work of wit is composed, such as a poem, a story, etc.
RAE Dictionary
Paraphrasing Judge Hand, anyone is free to arrange his affairs in the way that best suits his personal, family, business, and financial interests, as long as it does not contravene the laws of the countries with which he interacts.
Dealing with such matters, such a person can seek and apply the methods and procedures that best suit their interests: health, peace of mind, security, privacy, and the desire to leave their wealth to their heirs. They are not legally or morally obliged to choose the system that suits the interests of third parties.
However, to achieve this, they will need a framework, a structure, a precise way of distributing and ordering their things. They need to achieve what will be — using the dictionary’s definition above — “a work of ingenuity” in the management of their affairs.
I invite you to read more of my articles on this and other provocative topics.
Here’s to your future!
— Víctor Tapia —
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Víctor Tapia is a writer who specializes in bitcoin, internationalization, and wellness issues. For his website’s web presence, he writes and edits both English and Spanish articles, guides, and courses. Similarly, he focuses on producing material for other parties and produces Medium stories on various themes related to his field.
Víctor worked for many years in the field of food and beverages, both for the hospitality and food industries. Before founding My CBS in 2002, he was the General Manager at Parmalat S.p.A., the multinational food corporation, at its subsidiary in Curaçao. One of his activities is service coaching in any area of commerce and industry, including food and beverages.
You can get in touch with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, follow his posts on Medium, Mixturas (Spanish) and Completeness (English), or by visiting his website, My CBS.
