"One cannot endlessly extrapolate that “taxes are good for you.” Mark Milke
As our government continues down the road to increased taxes, a burden that has grown heavier with almost every budget since independence, Mark Milke of the Fraser Institute http://www.fraserinstitute.org/ offers some food for thought in an excellent article entitled, Taxes and Civilization: Let's Not Overdo It (pdf).
He makes the point that even though wars have been fought over time because of the increasing tax burden of the state, somehow they remain.
In most cases taxes have continued to grow. And with the introduction of VAT, Bahamians will see their tax burden grow even more.
In a democratic society, government in theory is supposed to govern in the interest of the publicus or the public-at-large.. Governments govern with the consent of the people and is answerable only to the people.. However today, in practice, this is not the case in the Bahamas or the United States as political governance has become for and about the governing class, the political elite and its bloated bureaucracy.. Government policies are being used to suppress individual liberty and freedom while increasing political and economic control over a populous which has no meaningful idea of what is happening to them..
A government’s power to tax is the power to exercise absolute political control.. Every great civilization going back to the ancient Greeks have been destroyed by oppressive taxation that governments have forced on their peoples.. Today there is no exception to this underlying principle of history even as the nations of Western Civilization today are taxing themselves into political self-destruction..
Excessive tax policies encourage migration to lower tax jurisdictions by both individuals and corporate entities.. Today there is an exodus from high tax jurisdictions like the United States to low tax and low cost-of-living jurisdictions like Costa Rica, the Philippines and Chile which immediately come to mind..
In the case of the Bahamas, high wealth advisers often cite the Bahamas as a high tax, high cost and high crime jurisdiction.. Arguments supporting the Bahamas are hard pressed at best as our competitive position for wealth immigration is rapidly eroding.. The VAT may very well be the the kiss of death for the Bahamas as the cost-of-living will rapidly rise killing off much needed employment and economic growth.. Now is time for government to rethink this regressive tax, the burden of which will create addition hardships on an already over taxed Bahamian people.. It is becoming more apparent that the absolute power to tax is the power to destroy..