Taxes |
Harry Morskate | 4 juni 2010 |
| Should municipalities, like others, not be
cutting back? Taxes are an imposition and are a heavy burden to bear.
In the past, most taxes were levied by the sovereign who asked for
money from his citizens in exchange for protection. The lord had a
court to run, an army to maintain, the cost of which had to be paid for
by the people. In fact, the citizens paid a fee for the important
service they were offered – a service that they themselves could not
deliver. The fee was part of the harvest or from excise duty. The word taxes is, in fact, completely wrong. Citizens pay a price for all kinds of services that are not privately held: defence, justice, construction and maintenance of public infrastructure in a country, etc, When schools are private, we pay for tuition at the school of our choice. If they are state schools, we pay for tuition, but now through the government. The issue is not whether we pay more or less, but the question is to know what services the governments – national and municipal - provide us with, and what is the cost involved. The question is not that, as citizens, we need to maintain the local machine and that therefore the 'taxe d'habitation' and the 'taxe fonciere' need to be increased. It is whether the municipality effectively provides the services that, we, as citizens, demand. |
If
the economy, for whatever reason, shrinks, private and public companies
cut their spending. If the income is reduced, spending must be reduced
accordingly. When this happens to us as private individuals, we have to
make choices: we are not buying that new car yet and we ask ourselves:
“will we go on vacation this year or not?” or “can we afford to go out
to dinner once a week?”. Citizens should also be able to say to the municipality: “ we demand less services from you”. Or, “ you need to deliver those services more efficiently”. But it is very strange that, once more, as in the past few years, the citizens in our community are paying far too much. And this while the really basic tasks such as the construction and maintenance of public infrastructure are not being executed. Tax revenues in the last 4 years increased 41% to 44,000 - € 62,000 - € or in other words 315 - € 446, - € per inhabitant.Increasing municipal taxes, according to the service contract that the citizens have with their community, is not the obvious approach. The municipality must first impose upon themselves strict efficiency targets, and limit themselves to basic tasks. That is what businesses also do and, in this way, they ensure that products and services are not too expensive if the economy deteriorates. |
