Why taxes?

When we start to work, paying taxes seem to be so an obvious duty that few of us wonder why we must pay them or what they are used for. Some people feel unsatisfied paying taxes. Although the usefulness of taxes is not so difficult to understand, we should make it clear by thinking about where it comes from.

The birth of taxes occurred when communities had somethings to do in common. People in a group (city or country) earn the benefit of going to theaters. So building theaters demands everyone's effort. Also, city halls, libraries, parks, etc, those are common places that every citizen can use. Therefore, every citizen has the responsibility of paying some portion of their income for the public. Now that we've found out the very role of taxes: Building and serving the public. Paying taxes means contributing to the development of the nation.

Not only buildings, taxes are used to set up the government for protecting and directing the country. In fact, taxes are mostly the government's income. Therefore, government officers must serve the people as they live on their money. Moreover, citizens have the right of asking the government for their desires.

Taxes also help reducing the gap between rich and poor, since higher income pays higher tax. Furthermore, because every citizen can use public service and welfare system regardless of how much they have in their pocket, paying taxes means we help each others to live in harmony. Imagine that a homeless old man can go into city libraries to read books or magazines free as other rich ladies although the latter pay much more than the previous does. Using taxes, we give poor children scholarships to help them pursuing their education, we motivate voluntary activities to help the communities, we support the development of other poor countries.

We've come to understand why taxes appeared in our society and what they're used for. Although some people still think taxes are dirty cut from people's income, I believe that most of us accept them as our duty for the nation and our mean to help each others. Of course, using taxes correctly is another controversial problem that we should return later in other entries.

--- Posted on Aug 2nd by minhem ---