A tax take (broken mental model)
Sep. 26th, 2011 05:12 pmI've recently paid a significant amount of money on a home renovation. My mental model for where that money goes is pretty simple - I pay someone, they pay income tax.
It's missing several steps from the reality.
[edit] Virtual chocolate fish to
exiledinpn for immediately pointing out the glaring flaw in my new mental model. Feel free to ignore everything except the end of the post.[/edit]
( no longer particularly germane )
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This post has been germinating for a little while, since a brief furor last month about not paying cash prices to tradesmen. I/S said then
Cynically I say that's money which is just as likely to be going into some govt slush fund, in the same way as you can't say "we're/they're borrowing to fund x y or z". But my real gripe is about transparency.
- If the government wants/needs me to pay for schools, hospitals, public services
- and and the prevailing model is to tax income (which conceptually it is in NZ at present)
- then they should tax me directly with an appropriate rate not by stealth through the people with whom I do business.
That way we the public get to feel honestly how much we are paying for, and perhaps take a keener interest in just what these people we elected are actually doing with our money.
It's missing several steps from the reality.
[edit] Virtual chocolate fish to
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This post has been germinating for a little while, since a brief furor last month about not paying cash prices to tradesmen. I/S said then
That money you save by aiding and abetting a tradeperson's tax fraud? That's money that would normally go to schools, hospitals, and public services. You might as well be going down there and smashing some windows yourself.
Cynically I say that's money which is just as likely to be going into some govt slush fund, in the same way as you can't say "we're/they're borrowing to fund x y or z". But my real gripe is about transparency.
- If the government wants/needs me to pay for schools, hospitals, public services
- and and the prevailing model is to tax income (which conceptually it is in NZ at present)
- then they should tax me directly with an appropriate rate not by stealth through the people with whom I do business.
That way we the public get to feel honestly how much we are paying for, and perhaps take a keener interest in just what these people we elected are actually doing with our money.