Capitalist
On my 16th birthday I walked out of school at 3:30pm and never went back; for all I know I am still enrolled there. The next day, having lined a few things up beforehand, I commenced an oddball ‘cottage industry’ around various farms of undertaking a series of dirty jobs nobody – least of all the farmers – wanted to do. It was quite enjoyable, my celerity ensured a great deal of work was undertaken with the consequent financial remuneration. What annoyed me about all of this was being informed I would need to pay income tax on the money by some officious, impertinent IRD apparatchik. Cleaning cesspits was a breeze compared to handing over 24 per cent of my money to a lot of welfare-sated parasites.
A few days after the 1990 general election while still on a massive high after our comprehensive victory over the commies, I purchased 20,000 shares in the old Arthur Barnett department stores at 35 cents each; they were a popular, well-respected department store chain in the South Island. In those days it was easy enough to talk my way into it – nobody at Forsyth Barr queried whether I was actually old enough to buy shares on my own.
A couple of years later having largely forgotten about this investment, I noticed in the newspaper the share price was around $2 and therefore sold for a large capital gain. Over the next five years I bought and sold shares in three different companies, doubling my money on each occasion: my original $7500 had turned into over $300,000 without troubling the tax man. Certainly better than a poke in the eye!
Over the years my success in playing the sharemarkets of the world has continued, with only a single losing investment back in 1998, and it’s a fun tax-free way to make a great deal of money whilst ensuring my life consists of leisure, pleasure, politics and family, rather than undertaking silly things like work.
My reason for mentioning all this is to say that if “death and taxes” are an unavoidable part of life, I want to encourage you folk to look at the big picture and away from any foolish divagation. The question to ask yourself is this: would you rather pay tax on the seeds or the harvest? Despite being very angry at the time, I handed over 24 per cent of my hard-earned money in 1990 to the taxman, and invested a sizeable dollop of what I was allowed to keep – the ‘seeds’, so to speak – into a bountiful, tax-free harvest.
Too often self-employed men focus upon t’upenny h’penny ways to massage down their tax bill, whereas the time doing so would be better spent seeking ways to generate tax-free returns on investments and capital. But, and this is most important, look at things in terms of seeds and the harvest. Are you paying taxes on the harvest? And doing so because of some strange penny pinching exercise with what turned out to be seeds? If so then try reversing the order of things. Nobody is entitled to your money: you certainly don’t owe ‘society’ – Charlene, Trevor and Rangi – more welfare money to spend on burgers and meth. Start thinking of yourself and your own family with ways to become richer by growing your capital.
