Victoria University researchers have been struggling to answer what they say is the “complex” question of why welfare fraudsters and tax evaders are viewed differenttly.
Lindsay Mitchell answers it quite simply: it’s because the money kept by tax evaders is their own, they made it; whereas the money taken by welfare fraudsters is not, they acquired it by fraud.
So when an individual attempts to keep more of what he has created there is less anger than when someone tries to take what he hasn't. That is why society has greater tolerance (and exhibits it through the courts) for tax evasion than welfare fraud.
Simple enough?
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9 comments:
Oh so true. I support a certain amount of taxation say around a flat 15% of income. Anything above that amount is out and out theft by the Government.
The big point is - what's the difference between "welfare fraud" (stealing someone else's money) or "welfare" (stealing someone else's money) or for that matter plain "fraud" (stealing someone else's money).
Tax evasion isn't stealing, it is keeping your own. That's not a crime, that's a virtue.
An excellent argument by Lindsay. Repugnance and betrayal do figure in the length of criminal punishment
Deep down all tax payers sympathize a little with tax evaders. We may even feel sneaky admiration for them in their effort to keep the government out of their pockets. Nobody empathizes with welfare fraud, especially not beneficiaries, whose lives are made harder because they now have to jump through more hoops.
Get rid of stinking income tax and this debate largely goes away.
3:16
15% isn't a flat tax. $15,000 or $1,500 or $500 is a flat tax.
15% is a progressive confiscation where anyone of real value pays $150,000 every year and bludgers pay nothing.
Not if you still have proportional consumption taxes or land taxes or wealth taxes instead.
Get rid of welfare (including state schools, hospitals, super, roads etc) and the problem goes away...
I said largely. I think the other progressive taxes are in the too hard to administer basket really - picking pockets on pay day is so much easier.
3:16
The problem is not - in the limit - taxes.
The problem is the welfare. Get rid of that; get rid of the universal franchise that always produces taxes, and the problem will go away. Keep welfare - whatever happens with taxes, even if like Saudi or Norway you can pay for the whole bulging lumpen-mass via oil money - and the problems remain.
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