On Taxing Times

The doers of good works are getting desperate. Every day mailbox, email, phones from charity appeals. Tax time: a chance to do more. We ought to pay more tax, of course; it could solve so much. Except that governments shift tax money into false imprisonment and colonial misadventures, such a waste. The truth is suffering, says Buddha. What to do? Who to trust?

Methods. Pressure: when I get dramatic invasive robocalls I block the number. Getting aggressive sales pitches saying I’d give more if I really cared I hang up. When I’m told I’m not caring I tune out. Bribery: when little packets arrive (pens, stationery, plastic logoed shopping bags) I run out of places to send stuff from people I know and those I don’t know. Manipulation: The gift economy implies a return. Then I hear from someone who wants me giving dead as well as alive.

Blame: whatever you’re doing it’s not enough. Taxes rightly directed could heal, educate, house, protect. Whose name and face on this coin? The times are taxing. Pay attention to the hungry, unclothed, imprisoned, mistreated, and sick. Struggling pieces of suffering everywhere. We do what we can, with such grace as we may.

On Tax

Follow the money, follow the goods. I confess my ignorance of economics. If a tariff is designed to prevent goods entering a country, what prevents goods leaving a country? An embargo. Tariff is basically a tax; both are trade barriers. Different from outright bans on, say, illegal drugs.

Locally, our Treasury decides to tax all overseas goods, including it seems items not subject to tax here: books, second-hand goods, and so forth. Overseas, although not a nation-state, Amazon embargoes all goods to Australia, (excepting limited local stores). The causes are not so interesting: what actually happens is an attempt to prevent goods entering the country or leaving the warehouse.

            Currently, the US taxes steel to prevent steel imports. During the US Civil War, the US embargoed cotton to prevent the South financing the war from its principal crop. Resulting shortages in the English textile industry led to Indian cottons taking over the trade.

            What results from tax? When the coin bears Caesar’s name, tax must be paid, and they say the inability to collect taxes brought the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Little things have big consequences. In the case of trade barriers, who profits? Someone else, it