Tax collectors and sinners

In the NT tax collectors and sinners were more or less the same category – outsiders who had no place amongst the pious. That was before self-assessment, January 31 deadlines, advertising campaigns by Inland Revenue about the likely judgement to fall on those late with their tax return. There is this large slowly pouring hour-glass, with a wee taxpayer getting dangerously near the core that will suck him down into fiscal oblivion. Nowadays it seems the tax collectors are no longer in solidarity with the sinners; they are authorised to decide who the sinners are, and to exact penalties that echo the ominous phrase of not getting out till we pay the last penny.

I have no problem at all about being a tax-payer. Many of the best things in our community, our culture, our country, are possible because we contribute some of what we have to make sure everyone gets something of what they need. While taxes are often the instruments of injustice – used properly they can also be effective ways of restoring justice. Health care for all at the point of need, inclusive non discriminatory opportunities for education, social security as a humane system still retaining the ethos of compassionate help for the vulnerable, offering service and support to sustain dignity and purpose in life.

So it’s not the principle, it’s the process – I just hate the figures, the calculations, reducing a year’s work to time consuming feats of amateur book balancing.