Tips for Trevor
This week Jou Ma se Purse writes in to the Finance Department’s “Tips for Trevor” campaign, where ordinary citizens can fax through their ideas on how the government should be collecting our money in taxes, and spending it on themselves.
Hoeluikit Trevor?
Jy’s mos van Kensington af, ne? Once a Capey, always a Capey. Doesn’t matter how much money you’re in charge of looking after. Though I wouldn’t schmaak your job – the oke in charge of handling all of government’s bucks! What are you gonna do if SARS don’t collect the R642,3 billion rand in taxes that you set for them as a target last year?
The economic experts are guessing you’ll be running the country at a loss of between 3%- 6% this year. And when you are dealing with gazillions of government rands, each percentage must work out to a lot of money that the next generation is going to have to pay back, long after you and I are gone.
Anyways Trevor, us brasse vannie Kaap must help each other, which is why I’m writing to you. You have the power to protect the Mother City, Trevor. Protect us with your taxes.
TIP 1: Cape Town Visa Tax.
Cape Town is the best city in the world; and so, obviously, a major tourist destination. Which is why we need our own visa. To tax all the ouens who just pull in for a few days to crowd our beaches, clog up our roads, use and abuse Cape Town’s facilities, and then go home. After they’ve bought some valuable beachfront property. Our property Trevor. We’re the ones that are living and working in Cape Town, paying our taxes, and keeping businesses going. So we need a Visa Tax to tax all the people who get to enjoy Cape Town as much as we do, but who don’t put in as much effort as us.
Setting up toll gates will be easy: by road, the N2 at Sir Lowry’s Pass, and on the N1, at the Hugenot Tunnel. Airports will rake in big money from the rich overseas tourists who’ll see the value in needing a visa for a place so special. Check points at the bus stations will also help keep tabs on the number of foreigners coming in from other places in Africa where life isn’t as safe and as plentiful.
We can charge a fair price and then use the money raised from the Visa Tax to build decent homes for the millions living below the water level in shacks. You know, the ones next to the N2, that the tourists all take photos of. The townships without running water and sanitation, that stretch for kilometres until the sea. Cape Town can spend the money it earns in lots of clever, humane ways.
TIP 2: Green Tax
Give Cape Town businesses a moerse tax incentive to become more environmentally friendly. If we can control our usage of the natural resources we have, learn to stop polluting our seas and rivers, and change our way of thinking that just sees making more money as the best result, no matter the consequences, then we will one day still be able to show our children what fish and forests look like. People understand the cost of money, so you should use that to help them understand the cost of what they are doing to the environment.
TIP 3: Obesity Tax
I’m not saying tax people for being fat. Just tax what they eat. Junk food, fizzy drinks, and fast food. It’s as much of a sin eating McDonalds and drinking Coca Cola as it is smoking cigarettes. If you want to indulge in these guilty pleasures, then you’ll just have to pay more. The rest of us will be cycling the Argus.
TIP 4: Pay as You Go Tax
Scrap VAT (Value Added Tax) because I don’t see where the value is added if I pay a 14% VAT tax on everything I buy already, and then I still have to pay income tax on top of that. It’s no wonder some skelms are not declaring their real earnings, while those that are paying are asking ‘for what in return?’ To improve local government’s service delivery, or to build better airports for our tourists? While nobody enjoys paying their taxes, having just one ‘Pay as You Go’ tax is at least something that everybody can understand. Try explaining SARS e-filing to my ma, Trevor!
Tip 5: Corruption Tax
If you work for the government, steal, and get caught, instead of appointing a commission of inquiry, why not tax the culprit ten times the amount that they stole? Don’t send them to our overcrowded prisons where they will at least have a roof over their head. Put them to work digging trenches under a hot South African sun until they have paid back our society. Make corruption not worth the risk. Because as long as those in power keep embezzling from the pot of gold, the sooner we will have no rainbow.
Like Obama made us believe that ‘Yes We Can’, it’s time for you to make us see that ‘Ja/Nee, Ons Moet’.
You can fax your ‘Tips for Trevor’ to (012) 315 5126.
