I consider it sensible economic policy for every government to levy taxes on goods, services or income only where it can collect a majority of those taxes. Therefore, while I am not of the view that payment of taxes is equivalent to slavery, I think that a government ought not to announce a tax rate and then further burden the citizen with the duty to ensure that that tax is collected as conveniently and promptly as is possible. With those views in mind, I am not as sympathetic to the near demand by the Secretary of the Exchequer of the UK government in his preposterous claim here that citizens who pay plumbers in cash are engaged in immoral acts because it makes it easier for the latter to evade or avoid tax payments.
More recently, governments have been correctly concerned with the operations of tax havens which may support practices that are illegal in terms of tax evasion. That aside, most tax evasion occurs simply because of unduly complex characterization of what is taxable and what is exempt in addition to trying to capture transactions for which the existing tax collection model is a poor fit. despite my real sympathy with the need to collect taxes to cover deficits and close up the debt position, I am reluctant to accept this ranting by public sector officials that all citizens should bear the burden of ensuring that the revenue service catch every penny.
To my mind, citizens should not be forced to write cheques and avoid the convenience of legitimate cash transactions in order to ensure traceability for the revenue services. Perhaps its just time to ask that governments should discuss plainly whether levying a tax that is this difficult to collect is good use of the legislative authority. The remedy comes back to creating moderate tax rates and simplifying the tax system and ensuring that government is run from the resulting revenues. Its not too clever to levy taxes and ask citizens to help with the thinking about ensuring absolute compliance. Just simplify the tax code.
3 comments:
Yes I agree, plumbers should take pay in cash for his good works.
One of the most unique, yet an important occupation, is of a plumber, which is equally significant and tough when compared to other conventional fields.
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Thanks for the information, about finding the right plumber. It is interesting that commercial plumbing can actually be a little bit different than residential plumbing. Obviously, it's not too different because drains are drains, but there are, couple of key differences that makes it more advantageous to hire- the specific plumber, for your plumbing needs.
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