Image: credit.com
I recently had a conversation with a client of mine who used to work for the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency), which is akin to the U.S.'s IRS. It was very interesting to hear the perspective of taxation justification coming from a former employee of the organization responsible for the mass re-purposing of hard-earned Canadian wages. Needless to say, this perspective was as "full of holes" as a pair of fishnet stockings, and does as well of a job dressing up this bloated mass of lies as the same pair of stockings would increase the appeal of a rotting corpse.
I was prepared to present logical facts and mathematical equations until my face turned blue with little more in return than a blank expression and resistance to new perspectives. I was wrong. My friend was very receptive, and even more, quickly came to terms with the reality that taxation at the very least warrants a closer look from the average person. This brought me to a realization of two things. First, most people have just not taken the time to sit down and think about this from a logical, mathematical perspective. Second, if you present a topic in the correct manner you can have amazing results communicating truth to people, even if they are a person who is unlikely to be receptive.
With that, I would greatly appreciate it if we could set aside our belief systems, what we have been taught to 'think we know', and just take a look at this from a reality based perspective with the experience of adults in the real world.
In Canada our parents and education system teach us that taxes pay for any or all of the following:
I would say that the above listed covers the main body of services/expenses allegedly covered by the government with tax dollars for the citizens. First of all, I would like to bring up the fact, yes fact, that taxation is justified by promoting the fear of being without these services or fear of the state that lack of such services would result in. Any time you are forced into making a decision with the threat or promise of negative consequences you are making a decision in a STATE OF DURESS. This is non-debatable if you understand the definitions of the words used in this statement. Now, this being a fact, we need to recognize the psychological implications of this to realize that any decision or belief formed in a state of duress is not based in logical thinking and may not even be based in reality whatsoever. If you do not agree with this I suggest you do even a small amount of research into the effects of stress and duress on the human psyche and the effects it has on the decision making processes.
The next step, after recognizing that fear of possibilities may be clouding our reasoning process, is to analyze taxation from a reality based perspective. Let's take a look at the "services" provided and see if we're actually getting what we pay for.
Image: Google Maps
Infrastructure is claimed to be supported by property tax dollars, but if you take a look around it seems only a fraction of tax dollars is used for this. During my 15 years in the construction industry I've developed a clear picture of the development process and costs associated with project development. I'm telling you, it doesn't add up. Let's start from the ground up. In Canada, if a new housing subdivision is to be developed the land would be sold to a developer. This developer is responsible for subdividing all of the land and surveying the property lines, running all of the utilities including power, water and gas, and finally installation of roads, sidewalks, signs and lighting. These costs plus profit are passed on to a home builder who, after pulling the necessary permits, will build a home for a customer. Of course the cost of the home build, including the land, is marked up and charged to any willing home buyer. We now have developed an entire neighborhood without a single tax dollar's worth of influence. "The property taxes are used to maintain the infrastructure though, right?" Not from what I've been seeing. I will use a good friend's neighborhood as an example. My friend bought his house in the mid-eighties and was the fourth house on his crescent. There are hundreds of houses in his section of this neighborhood. Let's estimate some numbers based on a conservative house count of 300. My friend pays well over $2000/year in property taxes, let's average the homes out at 2k each/year. 300 homes x 2000/year in property tax = $600,000.00/year at present. As far as maintenance on his street goes: All of the utility services are paid for monthly by the occupants of the homes and maintained by utility companies, homeowners maintain the homes and their lot of land, the roads and sidewalks haven't been done in over 30 years and he's lucky if they clear snow on his block even once per winter. Where the hell does this $600K go? Even better, let's take the average over 30 years based on $900/year/home for the first 10 years, $1400/year/home for the second decade and $2000/year/home for the past 10 years. Based on these numbers, this would equal an average of $12,900,000.00 in property tax dollars alone over the course of 30 years from just 300 homes. If I were to break up his residential area by the schools provided we would be looking at about 900+ homes as well as townhouses and apartment buildings. We're talking 36-50 million tax dollars here with literally no improvements to the infrastructure from the City of Edmonton. Sure they send a truck out once a year to tar over the cracks in the pavement, remove snow once per winter and they've mud-jacked up a section of sidewalk that was sinking... we're talking bare-bones maintenance here for more than it cost to develop the area folks. We still have not taken into account the revenue from permits and fines GST on land sales, etc.
Education is next on our list and I am sure you're thinking "the money to build the schools surely comes from tax dollars and can account for some of the missing tax dollars listed above." Sure, let's assume that 100% of the construction and operation of any given school is dependent on tax dollars. 1 year of taxes would more than cover the cost to build the school. Even with a generous budget for operational expenses, of say 1.5 million/year, we would still have a lot of dough to account for. Although much of the funding for schools comes from private sources such as fundraising and donations, we'll just keep assuming it is 100% covered by tax dollars. Are we getting what we're paying for? After all, our educational system is producing highly intelligent individuals who are capable of critically analyzing information and making educated decisions all while developing balanced brain hemispheres through exploration of creativity and the arts... wait a second... no it's not! It's producing uneducated, imbalanced individuals who are dependent on the very system responsible for putting them in this state! It's all good though, we've got a pill for that!
Health Care may be covered by tax dollars, but again, are we getting what we pay for? Many of the statistics on this are skewed to prevent a reality-based understanding of the data being presented. For example; If you are to look at cancer rates per capita they seem almost reasonable and are even presented as being on the decline. Yet if you look at the reality of the disease statistics over-all, 1 in 2 Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer and 1 in 4 will die of cancer. This is a fucking epidemic! The fact of the matter is that people are getting sicker and sicker and disease rates are sky-rocketing along side of prescription medication consumption. I'm not here to make all the correlations for you but medicine is business, these companies have stock holders, the price of stocks goes up with an increase in profit not results in the field. In a way we are to blame for this ourselves. A while back I was speaking with a friend of my Brother's who is a young doctor. I was discussing the importance of nutrition with him when he told me; "It really doesn't matter, you can give people the information and try to help them but most of my patients do not want to hear what I have to say, they just want a pill - a quick fix, so they can get back to whatever it is they do. People are not interested in being healthy." So I guess most of you are getting what you pay for. I, however, am no advocate of any health care system which makes most patients sicker and treats symptoms before causes.
Police & Military is another "service" which is definitely operating outside of the descriptive boundary presented to the public's eye. I will not be getting too deep into this as I will be presenting this in a post all it's own. Let's be logical here, that's all I'm asking. Police are meant to protect us, which would insinuate the prevention of crime and preservation of rights. Fact: Very rarely do police prevent crime from happening, they arrive on the scene afterwards. Fact 2: I can not recall even one instance of a police officer protecting my, or anyone I know's, rights. I have however had my basic rights infringed upon many times without provocation through causing damage to another or their property. Apparently traffic offenses are the demise of our nation as enormous amounts of man-power are dedicated to protecting us from dangerous offenders attempting to get to work on time. The military is a beast of it's own. Max Igan put it best when he inquired; "If the governments have all these problems with each other, why are they over there bombing civilians? Why doesn't one government simply bomb the palace or government buildings that the "enemy" occupies?" Let's be real, do you consent and condone ALL of the actions of these organizations?
Social Programs are directly funded by tax dollars with a very definite goal focus - to make the people dependent on the state for support and personal welfare. This promotes a perpetual 'child-like mentality' which seeks a 'father figure' to help them with all of their problems. Are there people out there who need assistance? Hell yeah, but this is much better provided at the community level for many reasons, some of which include; it would build community relationships, promote independence, increase empathy and it puts people in a position to improve themselves with the support of those that care about them.
Wages for Government would be one of the expenses I would be least likely to have a problem with, if I were to agree with the principle of government whatsoever - which I don't. Please take the time to read my short essay on Anarchy if you would like a little more insight into why government is actually unnecessary for a conscious populace. I think pretty much everyone will agree that the salaries, pensions and benefits packages provided to politicians are exorbitant to say the least, while the employees who are the lower level backbone are payed low wages with the promise of paid vacations, job security and health/retirement benefits. I have no problem with a person being paid a fair wage for providing a product or service, I do have a problem with money being collected to support a redundancy. In other words: as with vehicle registries and gun registration, these bureaucratic agencies collect money to fund procedures which actually provide no service to us to us whatsoever. They provide services to those ruling us to limit our rights and freedoms with our consent. They are redundant because they are not required to achieve the results which they promise and furthermore, the actions of these agencies typically oppose the principles they promise to uphold.
I'll first bring this up from the perspective of a person who agrees with the current government/economical system, which would most likely represent the majority of Canadians to say the least. If I were to be in full support of the current state I would say this: The government has proven themselves to be corrupt and has shown us their inability to properly manage our finances and infrastructure. Many of the government agencies and legislation is proving to be counter-productive and the safety, abundance and health of the average citizen has taken a back seat to an agenda that is irrelevant in light of the matters here discussed. As little to none of the conditional funding provided by us the citizens is being applied in the manner presented to us, the monies collected by taxation or any other means by the government or any of it's agencies has here by been stolen from the Canadian Citizens.
Now if I were to take my true perspective, a perspective based in Love and Anarchy, I would say that any involuntary collection of the fruits of an other's labor is theft and inasmuch is slavery. Any system perpetuating and propagating slavery must in itself be corrupt, which is quite vividly evidenced by the nefarious collection and redistribution of tax dollars in any nation, largely to the benefit of those in power and the detriment of those below. Do we even need to bring up the fact that tax dollars are collected under the threat of violence?
We need to realize that it is our belief in any given system which allows us to be manipulated through it. If you think that the current Eco-political system is the best we can do - okay, fine, I'll work with that. Just recognize that this system is currently being abused by those at the top, and just because the system my be practical in theory does not mean that we couldn't, at the very least, use to clean house a bit here. In truth the only societal structure that could benefit the people to the full extent of our Natural Rights would be a system OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE. Which, through understanding of Natural Law, would inevitably result in true Anarchy or Freedom!
Please check out my other posts, mostly freedom related with a sprinkling of health and cannabis!
