Given the brazen attempt to impose new taxes and increase the size of the existing ones, this government must certainly take the top prize for impunity and total disregard for the abject economic and social conditions in which the overwhelming majority of the Ghanaian live.
Of course, one should, under normal circumstance, not fail to realise the necessity and importance of the payment of taxes. And no one has put the case for the payment of taxes better than Professor Cyril Northocote Parkinson, the late British professor of Public Administration. I beg my readers, pardon me for quoting him for the third time or so time.
In his book, THE LAW AND THE PROFITS, published in 1960, he notes that �taxation is as old as time.� He writes: �Taxation as such is vital to civilisation.�
He writes further: �Public expenditure is justifiable for a number of necessary and even noble purposes that the citizen should contribute towards the common defence, towards the dignity of the state, towards the maintenance of justice, and towards the prevention of disease and the support of learning is not seriously open to dispute.�
He goes on: �He (the citizen) owes a debt to the State, as well as his ancestors and descendants. He was brought up under its protection, induced to obey its laws, taught to rely on its justice, and endowed with a share of its fame.
He concludes: �Only the stateless know what it is to have no national legend, pride or flag. For the privileges of citizenship, the individual must pay. Up to a point, moreover, the value of the privilege must depend upon the amount and readiness of his payment. The state without revenue is a state without power. Demanding little, it has little, in turn, to give.�
Notwithstanding the title of my article, I am very much aware of the need for any government to have revenue through the imposition of taxes and other sources. At least, I know that I did not pay for my teacher training and university education.
My beef is about the justification or paying more taxes in the face of the �create, loot and share� conspiracy that has seen state revenue embezzled, stolen, misappropriated, misapplied, taken away in gargantuan, unprecedented and unconscionable proportions.
Much as Professor Parkinson makes a case for paying taxes, he has reservations. He writes: �There are limits to the collection of revenue, and evils multiply when these limits are ignored.�
To state one of such evils, Professor Parkinson quotes the words of Mr. J. R McCulloch, as follows: �Oppression, it has been said, either raises men into heroes or sink them into slaves, and taxation, according to its magnitude and the mode in which it is imposed, either makes men industrious, enterprising and wealthy or indolent, dispirited and impoverished.�
Of course, no one has ever loved paying taxes. Professor Parkinson makes it clear that unwillingness to pay taxes is a universal human failing.
He writes: �In studying the history of public finance, the temptation is to conclude that people are willing to pay taxes up to a certain point, up to 10 per cent, for example.�
He writes: �This would be an entirely mistaken idea. Normal people are reluctant to pay any proportion of tax at any time. Their grievances will be just as vocal whether taxes are heavy or light.�
Add this natural reluctance to pay tax to the realisation that revenue accruing from the imposition of taxes is criminally and greedily consumed by a few privileged officials in position as politicians, state officials such as ministers, public and civil servants.
Corruption and fraudulent misuse of public funds, as well as profligate spending of state revenue, did not start under the present government. Unfortunately, neither has it stopped, nor has any meaningful, sincere and concerted effort been made by the present government to take steps to eradicate the crime or mitigate it.
Each passing day sees reports of shameful embezzlement of state funds by shameless and unscrupulous individual in several sectors of the state. The Presidency itself has admitted to overspending. On what, one may ask? What explanation has been given for the profligate overspending at the Presidency?
Sometimes, the impression is created that the implementation of the Single Spine Salary payments has ballooned expenditure by the government. The finger of blame is pointed at public and civil servants in non-political positions.
What about the battalions of ministers, deputy ministers, aides, party hacks and other hangers-on who are allowed to dip their thieving fingers into the treasury box of the state?
How could a cool GH�10,000,000 (Ten million Ghana cedis) of the Road Fund be diverted into private pockets? How could money be fraudulently given to a few companies, ostensibly to support private enterprise, when, in fact, such companies are nothing more than conduits through which state funds are funneled into private pockets?
The answer is simple. Measures instituted to check corruption and embezzlement are either non-existent or tragi-comically ineffective.
The Auditor-General�s report goes to the President long after the embezzlement has taken place. Yet, even when the culprits are known, no action is taken by the government or law enforcement agencies, because of the fact that the culprits have very strong backing in various places � the government itself, the party, traditional authority, the �old school tie�, other group solidarity influences, etc.
Before our very eyes, over the years up till now, people have carted away millions in state funds and have got away with it.
Can you blame those who devise means to avoid the payment of tax, which is unfortunately legal? Can you even blame those who evade tax altogether, which is a criminal offence?
Writes Professor Parkinson: �The taxpayer�s reluctance to pay tax has been strengthened in recent years by his conviction that the money he pays will be largely wasted.�
Professor Parkinson based his observation on the working of the economies of Britain and America. Yet, what he wrote in 1960 has direct application to the happenings in our country.
How can this government have the effrontery to impose fresh taxes and increase the size of existing taxes, when monies collected, huge enough to keep us going, are fritted away in embezzlement and reckless and profligate overspending? And this government was going to make Ghanaians pay for calls received from abroad? Good grief!
Look at these monuments to official corruption and shameless embezzlement of public funds through a conspiracy to create, loot, and share in gargantuan and unprecedented fashion: � Waterville, Isofoton, Construction Pioneers, guinea fowl rearing and tree planting in the �North�, etc.
I hesitate to add the Woyome payment, because it is still a matter before the courts. Does Ghana deserve this cruelty?
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