A NZ couple - both doctors - have been found by the NZ Supreme Court to have engaged in tax avoidance. Their crime was diverting income away from their personal identities with the intent of reducing tax. There are several problems I have with this:
1. They have caused no injury to anyone
2. We have an incredibly unfair, immoral, unprincipled tax system
3. Unlike the government - this couple did not extort the money from others - they worked for it, and as doctors, they saved lives.
4. The government, which has the capacity to change the law, lobby the community for principles, spend money wisely, and withdrawal from its extortive practices, fails to do so.
So I ask you, who would you prefer to have the money, earned by the doctors, and extorted by the Internal Revenue Dept? I personal would love to see government funded, but not on the current terms. Given the huge public deficit, they cannot even do that. Not just NZ either. There are 9 of the 24 OECD countries around the world which have unacceptable deficits, and consider this as well:
1. There has been no substantive (debt crippling) war in 65 years
2. Add a 10th country, as Australia was until the unprecedented 'China-inspired' commodities boom a 'banana republic'.
This pair of doctors ought to be national heroes. As heroines, should we not expect them to fight for their cause - for a fair tax system? Perhaps, but I suspect they never had the moral or intellectual ammunition to defend their beliefs. Is that their responsibility? I say that its the governments. After all, our politicians are the custodians of the 'moral forces', namely the military, the police, and quarantine. Ought we not expect justice and principles from them. Where is the moral framework. I can't even see any mention of moral principles or human rights on the National Party website. What I do see is that the National Party philosophy is 'pragmatism', i.e. a philosophy of non-principle, and the National Party president Peter Goodfellow is the nation's 16th wealthiest men. Might we expect that, since the nation's governing party is also presided over by 'big business', and small business is getting such tax rorts, that it is the NZ salary earner, which includes doctors, who are getting such a bad deal. This couple is being persecuted for being doctors; for not having the time to attend to the government's complicated tax system, to create the same 'avoidance structures' as the wealthiest in the country. I personally can't be bothered to invest in such dishonest structures. I have neither the time for such 'low productivity', wealth-destruction measures, that I simply don't do it.
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