Comment 36749

By A Smith (anonymous) | Posted January 04, 2010 at 04:31:50

JonC, imagine there are two neighbourhoods in Hamilton, one is called Lazy, the other is called Effort. In Lazy, the majority of people enjoy taking it easy and living for the moment. In contrast, the people that live in Effort love building for the future

Over time, the people in Lazy fail to maintain their homes and the result is a neighbourhood that looks run down and dirty. Meanwhile, the people of Effort spend their weekends adding value to their homes, things such as landscaping, interior improvements, etc. The result is that homes sell for much higher market prices in Effort than in Lazy, even though both neighbourhoods use the exact amount of government services.

Under the current tax system, the people of Effort will end up paying more in taxes, simply because they tried to make their neighbourhood better. In contrast, because the market value of homes in Lazy are only 50% of the ones in Effort, the people of Lazy only have to pay half as much in taxes, even though they receive the exact dollar figure in government services.

This is an accurate description of the system we have today. One in which effort is punished and sloth is rewarded. Do you think it's a good idea to punish people just because they want to increase the quality of the neighbourhood?

Ryan has told us before that taxation leads to less of the behaviour being taxed. If this is true, why are we taxing effort and not laziness?

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