Unless your tax consultant
is a genius though, or unless you're willing to fight a fierce David
vs Goliath battle with the tax office, you won't be enjoying the
benefits of less or no taxes. Or unless you are a powerful
corporation.
I don't know about you,
but I pay almost always the full tax. I don't mind doing it – I put
something into the big pot and then the government takes money from
this pot to finance hospitals, schools and roads, plus giving the
really poor a helping hand. A good and sensible invention, this tax
thing. Of course the government also does a lot of stupid things with
that money, like subsidizing already profitable or even harmful
businesses, fighting wars, building walls and so on. Enough material
for 50 years of blogging, but let's ignore it this time.
A recent study estimates that 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) Euros are lost each year
in the EU from both tax avoidance and tax evasion. Even if the
estimate was bad and it came to only half of that, there'd be still
500 billion Euros lost each year. In other words, if everyone –
individual people and corporations – paid the tax that corresponds
to them, the EU would basically have no more financial problems. All
public debt would be paid off within nine years and absolutely
everyone would have their basic needs covered, such as education,
healthcare, food and a home. No higher taxes needed – just pay your
fair share. And yes, Amazon, you too!
“Tax
law should be enforced and all should be required to pay what is owed
by them. If that is not done actual inequality arises: those who pay
their taxes are worse off than those who do not. Resentment builds
amongst taxpayers and non-compliance increases. More worryingly
still, honest business is undermined by dishonest business. This
means that honest businesses are more likely to fail.” (source)
So why is there such a
huge tax gap? There are many reasons, but the underlying cause is
probably human greed. Greed for money and greed for power. Just as a
poor woman might steal a pen when she gets the opportunity, a
middle class woman saves cash when paying a cleaner in black and a
rich woman steals two million from the tax pot. In the same way, a
corporation, guided by its shareholders, also grabs the opportunity
for extra profit when it arises.
I don't like greed, but I
can accept it. It's an ancient human weakness – wanting more,
always more. However, given that the facts are so clear, that it's
greed leading to tax theft leading to reduced public funds, there are
other things that I can't accept. Like blaming immigrants for
example.
The whole tax gap disaster
needs to be solved, the sooner the better. That's where most
attention should go. Instead, people go crazy when we open the
borders to help those we've exploited in the first place; they say we
can't afford more immigrants, so why should we rescue those sinking
boats? Europe first – those black folks just want to steal our
money.
Greed is causing
inequality. Hence greed needs to be faced, addressed and, if not
eliminated, at least it has to be tamed and controlled. Racing
against immigrants is not only a sad human tragedy, but it's simply
the wrong strategy. It will only worsen the problem, it will divide
and breed hate and it definitely won't generate 1 trillion Euros...
And
just because it fits so beautifully, here's Donald Trump:
“The
point is that you can't be too greedy.”
