Should how much we pay in taxes be made accessible to the public?
Let us review some of the arguments for and against.
The against unsurprisingly sights privacy.
You can see how much people pay along with how much they deduct for their
debts, medical bills and even charity. Some people don't want others to
know they have high debts or medical bills as they feel embarrassed or they
feel it may hurt them when interacting with their peers or potential job
opportunities. Basically, an employer, or group can see if you look like
a liability more easily, or people can learn of your financial situation and
try to take advantage of you.
Those in favor of release, it helps insure
people pay by embarrassing people who try to dodge their taxes. So it
makes it harder to hide them siphoning money into a tax haven, and prevents
corruption as all eyes are now on the people who earn so much yet contribute so
little. It basically leaves no place to hide for people with respect to
paying their taxes. Additionally, Sweden, Norway, and Finland all have
public tax records. Their reasoning according to the Economist is that it
spurs continuous debate on the tax code to see that it is not too burdensome
and that it helps people see if they are pulling their own weight with respect
to contributing to the government in taxes.
Conclusion: I find myself siding against
people's privacy on this issue for government is something that is owned by the
people and people do need to see who is pulling their weight with respect to
contributions. Not to mention embarrassing people into not having a tax
haven and preventing corruption and tax dodging is an extreme benefit as we can
boycott those people who try to usurp the system. It even ensures that our
politicians don't take bribes as we can see all the money in all of the bank
accounts if they multiple and are able to ask where the additional money came
from that they did not earn through their job. Basically we can tackle
corruption and tax dodgers all at once.
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