"The state is saying to its citizens, your earnings are not exclusively your own, we (the state) have a claim on them and our claim precedes yours. We will allow you to keep some of it because we recognise your need but not your right, but whatever we grant you for yourself is for us to decide. Moreover the amount of your earnings that you may retain for yourself is determined by the needs of government, and you have nothing to say about it."
Frank Chodorov: The Income Tax: Root of All Evil
"The assumption is, "never under any circumstances should Washington D.C. ever take in a penny less in revenue. That's the assumption. You and I can lose our jobs, we can have lower pay, we can be unemployed, but not Washington. Under no circumstances should they ever take in one penny less." Thomas J. DiLorenzo, from his Mises.org lecture video, The Rothbardian Theory of Taxes
"The real goal should be reduced government spending, rather than balanced budgets achieved by ever rising tax rates to cover ever rising spending." Thomas Sowell
A truism, and when the money runs out, having depleted all the stored productivity, and having strained the economy into non-existence,
your right to your very existence will become theirs to do with as they please, just as they did with your earnings.
Ask any North Korean, brave enough to speak that is.
The Barbadian government is to lay off 3000 government workers early next year, despite having VAT.
Apparently being pressured by the IMF……
Yes, but of course spending more than they take in is not the problem. At least according to them.
We are taxing ourselves into oblivion.. When VAT becomes law and eventually fails as a hope for revenue source, the repercussions will be more than terrible.. For well over forth years successive governments under political pressures have become an out-of-control employment agency.. In economics this refereed to as “disguise unemployment” where personnel are added with no meaningful productive purpose other than political patronage.. This massive government payroll expense has literally bankrupted the country as it struggles to meet the successive payments..
The only feasible answer is to cut significantly the bloated number of government employees who should have never been hired in the first place.. Today we have about 10 citizens and residents for every government employee.. This ratio of 10 to 1 is unsustainable and is an unnecessary drag on productivity.. Cutting the size of the government payroll in half still leaves the country with a 20 to 1 ratio which is perhaps still far to high..
No one wants to see forced government employee reductions but when revenues run dry there will be little choice.. Now is the time for government to plan carefully using employment freezes, redundancy and early retirement incentives to reduce the sheer size of government.. Its time to get ride of all the phony, political appointed consultants would be a good place to start.. Huge cost savings could accrue to the government by closing down or reducing in size many of our overseas diplomatic and embassy offices.. We just don’t have the financial resources to justify such a pompous and portentous presence.. Government corporations should be sold off or privatized..
It time for breath of economic reality as VAT is not the cure-all to the utter mess we find ourselves in.. Either fix it now or pay the more disastrous consequences later.. Putting off until tomorrow what we must do today is not the answer.. Time is not on our side; time is our adversary as the forces of economic destruction only compounds with the passing of time..
The government hired them, now the government must fire them.. Most of these political patronage jobs are completely unnecessary, just as the political payoffs to the so-called consultant positions.. As both parties tend to do it, the unwritten code of silence prevails..
Today we just don’t have the financial resources to play these corrupt political games.. VAT will do us in and will literally paralyze the private sector into a kind of business freeze and eventual stagnation.. Private sector employment also will be cut in order to reduce increasing expenditures..
Greater revenue shortfalls will be the inevitable outcome as VAT leakage will cause even greater revenue losses.. In the more economically sophisticated EU, leakage is about one and a half of GDP.. One can only guess what the GDP VAT leakage percentage will be for the Bahamas as the IMF and government experts has been dead silent on this question..
We have permitted this tragedy to be done to ourselves, and we are to blame as much as government for what has happened to our beloved homeland..
What they are doing is killing business.They think because you are in business there is a never ending supply so just tax them more.That is BS & even the government is now finding that out from their own “Never ending source”. We have to shrink the government & 3/4’s of government employees are not necessary anyway.I would bet you that when the time comes & it will come when the IMF tells the government they have to let a whole lot of people go they will fight it.Why they don’t fight the VAT I do not know.They need to look within & start there.