Joe Spencer
Warning
Satire
Does anyone know the cost of taxation? Not the social cost of normalising institutionalised theft, but the actual dollar cost of collection and accounting for every dollar taken, the cost to the economy as a whole? This isn’t rhetorical: I’d be really interested to know.
Accountants are never cheap, and every year we hire them to get our books in order. Not so that we can be more organised, but so that the state knows how much it can claim we owe it. Then you have the tax lawyers and costs of running IRD and subsequent enforcement that follows. They must be massive. I’m sure I’m missing other costs, but let’s not get bogged down in all the details.
I can’t stand inefficiencies. Any time something costs more time or money to produce than it could otherwise, a sort of OCD type of frustration sets in.
So I got to thinking and realised that for once, the government had actually already come up with a solution, but they didn’t even realise it! The New Zealand government proved without a shadow of a doubt that it had the means to raise funds, without engaging in direct taxation. The money printer! Over the last two years the money supply has increased by around 40 per cent. This new money was created mostly to fund pet projects that the government slapped a “Covid response” label on. But it came with a huge benefit, it didn’t come with the usual costs and tedium of collection and accounting that regular taxation usually comes with. It turned up overnight! And without anyone filing a tax return! Magic!
Yip, yip, I understand the implications of this printing. Monetary expansion of any kind will dilute the value of the money already in supply. But, it is already accepted by most as a stealth taxation, so why not make it official.
Abolish the IRD. With this newfound ability to print whatever money they need, the IRD is very much a redundant organisation, wasting time and resources that the government could be using for their other more ‘virtuous’ endeavours. The digital printing press that the Reserve Bank wields is far superior and, with the added potential of using a central bank digital currency, we should most definitely aim to make the transition away from traditional taxation as soon as possible.
The equality factor is hugely beneficial politically speaking. No longer will the poor and colourful people of New Zealand be disadvantaged against those privileged wealthy and (probably evil) white men who can afford all those expensive accountants and lawyers!
Every dollar gets ‘taxed’ at an equal rate, regardless of how sneaky or effective your bookkeeper might be. If you are privileged enough to have more savings, you should pay the price for that privilege! Value will be taken fairly from your saved dollars whether you like it or not!
To any prospective government that claims to want to be more efficient, a claim made most election seasons, hitting delete on bloated and unneeded agencies like the IRD should be top of the list! And just think about it, the taxpayers would be better off. No stress of filing an IR3, no accountants, no waiting on hold for four hours waiting to speak to a ‘human’ because the website didn’t work again…
Now, the downside. Yes, our purchasing power would be reduced, consistently. But this already happens anyway. This new reduction in purchasing power would be easily offset by the money that remains in our pockets and out of the hands of the IRD.
As I write this another benefit comes to mind. Society as a whole would be better off, the dull and boring class of people that we often call accountants would no longer have anything to do, and with luck, they’d be on their merry way back to whichever distant galaxy they were spawned.
Yes, there would be an incentive to spend our cash quickly so as to keep as much of the saved value as possible. Keynesian economists will love that, more spending and less savings is an absolute dream for them! Keep that velocity of money high! And let’s be honest, it’s not like our savings rate would be very negatively affected, being near zero anyway…
Now, I’m not advocating that we as a society should tax at all: it’s not ethical and doesn’t belong in civil society. It is theft, no way around that without some serious mental gymnastics. But, if we are going to do it, let’s do it efficiently, and fairly. Let’s allow the government to print what they need, let them go down the path of debasing their own money for their own projects.
Let’s call on the government to empower the tree folk at Reserve Bank NOW and to remove the cancer that is the IRD! Bring true equality to taxation!
I am sure that Satoshi Nakamoto, CEO at Bitcoin would agree with me.
