Hayibo.com - SA 'suckers' warned against tax boycott

SA 'suckers' warned against tax boycott

PRETORIA. South Africa's tiny pool of taxpayers, commonly referred to by government officials as "those suckers", has been warned that a tax boycott would seriously disrupt the state's current policy of diverting vast amounts of money away from the poor and directly into the bank accounts of unaccountable cronies.

Just 5 million out of 48 million South Africans pay any form of tax, in return for which the state guarantees them sporadic passive-aggressive allusions to racism and the need for nation building via the purchase of luxury German sedans.

However many taxpayers have begun to doubt the sustainability of the current taxation system in which most tax goes through a process of redistribution known by economists as "looting".

While most taxpayers said they had no problem with handing over 40 percent of their income to ensure housing, water and electricity for the poor, they had "some reservations" about 40 percent of their income being spent on heated leather seats for Ministers' BMWs, paying politically connected contractors to rebuild RDP houses that fall down every five years because they were built by politically connected contractors, legal fees for government employees caught committing fraud, and the purchase of weapons that became obsolete in 1998 and might only be useful if South Africa is ever invaded by Mauritius.

Economists, too, say they are not sure that the current taxation system is workable.

"Institutionalised theft only works when you're stealing from a lot of people and giving the money to a few," explained economist Marx Tsepeng. "Unfortunately our government hasn't understood that if you don't broaden the base of people you're stealing from, you soon run out of stuff to steal."

He said he would try to explain the situation to Government in terms it could understand, "like maybe a story-sum in which the caterers for an SACP-Cosatu conference have only provided 5,000 sausage-rolls for the whole conference, but the delegates eat 4,000 of the sausage-rolls during the first tea break and then don't have any left for lunch".

However this morning the government warned taxpayers not to even think about staging a tax boycott.

"You voted for us," said Treasury spokesman Cufflinks Mpahle. "Well, okay, most of you didn't vote for us; but the people who spend your tax Rands did, and that's the important part.

"Now shut up and pay. Just bend over and think of Helen Zille."