Paying tax

  By Mystic | August 14, 2012 - 04:28 | ,

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Written by: Mystic on August 14, 2012.
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  • windslice

    Well really!

    You don’t have much to stand on when talking about the Greeks, eh?

    This is quite interesting because we were born in the same year. I went down the corporate path, paid all the taxes to the various countries that I worked in, and avoided the ball and chain of debt, wife and brats. This was much to the chagrin of various aunts and in particular my mother. Who felt I should enhance their lives with my brats.

    It did come with a financial penalty, the old man died off a few years before my mother died, leaving her all that he had worked for (being a typical 50/60′s family she stayed at home dealing with three brats). When she died everything was left to the “brat producing debt-ridden siblings”, which sort of excluded me.

    As I mentioned in a recent post, I’m a saver and as tight-arsed as they come. But I can claim social responsibility in paying my taxes, although I did not have any choice in the matter. And I am personally responsible for any illness or accident, which hopefully my health insurance will take care of, although there are a few limits on how much they will pay.

    Ah well, here’s to a long and interesting retirement hoping that the little wad of cash will pay for the roof and food…. 

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       That is why I don’t get into moralizing much (glass stones etc.)

      Paying tax …… OK if they insist, but you surely must have kept your money offshore~!?

      Personal health insurance gets very very expensive as you get older ……. can’t you get into the local system (if only for the basics)~?

      • windslice

        Yes, I’ve always been careful in keeping my money away from the claws. Luckily here the authorities don’t care about money kept abroad. All they want to know is that I have enough in a Thai bank for my annual visa.

        Private health insurance through the local BUPA costs EUR 350 each year. This is inpatient only and with an upper limit. As all medicines are available over the counter and reasonably priced, for the odd illness I go to the internet, determine what it is and then go and buy the pills.

        There is always the little doubt that something major might go wrong with the plumbing or the C-thing comes along. But if I worried myself about all the possibilities I’d probably have to see a doctor…..

        • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

           Yes, the paying tax on interest on earned money is an amazing bit of cheek.  Staying away from that has been a good advantage.

          The BUPA thing looks very cheap.  How much more to cover the big stuff~?

          • windslice

            Tax is an insidious process.

            You pay tax on your income and then pay more tax on your expenditure.

            The health insurance is a very good deal. I hope it lasts. Unfortunately with insurance there is a  group who reckon that it is an investment scheme, and that they should get more out every year than they pay in. They screw it up for all of us, as then premiums increase to massive levels.

            In twelve years I have claimed only once, and then only after two weeks of suffering as an abscess in my foot refused to submit to the self-administered antibiotics. A quick few slashes with a scalpel and intravenous antibiotics sorted it out. Maybe next time I will know what to do?

            I am thinking of bumping up to a higher grade, which will double the premium but increase substantially the total amount covered. The premium goes up a steep curve after the age of 60….

            In Asia medical care can, and often is, very objective. As an example the family of one incurable lady were told that it would cost “x amount” to keep her going for another few months, but it they couldn’t afford that, then she would be allowed to slip away quickly. When “x amount” is more than they have saved and would leave the family with major financial difficulties, the decision is clear. And slip away she did.

            Does the west really need to keep people going on and on?

            Death arrives at everybody’s doorstep. In the East this is accepted. The West, IMO, tries to deny it and live under the idea of immortality and “keep ‘em alive at all costs”.

            I do not want to be kept alive at all costs. What a waste of money.

  • Subtlepath

    Gosh….is this some sort of eleventh hour confession….?  I have to say that I found your personal revelation discouraging, even corrupt, given that you now expect the French to foot the bills for this and probably other medical procedures and probably a pension as well.  I appreciate your candor and I certainly know some folks here in the USA that have managed to get benefited at public expense.  How you square your conscience with this self revelation will be challenging…….the word that keeps coming to my mind is …..selfish!  :-(  Having said that….we all carry a shadow………sigh……..

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       Yeah, `selfish` is the word that comes to my mind as well.

      But, I don’t lose any sleep over being selfish though~!

  • Maski iz Manastira

    But you still paid VAT and various other surtaxes and fees when buying stuff … so, I kinda think you paid enough during your life for all the  services provided by government. Anyway, what would have the government done with your taxes? Get in more debt?

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       I have certainly paid more in via VAT/TVA and other taxes than I have so far got out ……. but the way I am falling apart physically, I may soon be into the black. 

      • Maski iz Manastira

        Are you sure? Do some numbers … And maybe calculate how much money it would be if it was in some savings account with low interest. I have a feeling those are big big numbers.
        In my country VAT is 25% ….
        And its not only VAT. There are tones of fees and charges that go to state …

  • Willbick

    didn’t have you down as a golfer lol

  • CSArichardo

    I forgive your sins … but not Mitt Romney’s !!!   

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       Well said Richardo~!!

  • Nate

    Nick
    I watched your piece with bemusement. I certainly would not admit to something like that in the USA. The Internal Revenue Service would throw me in jail. I hope no French officials hear this. By the way the Irish part of me admires the rebel in you.
    Nate from Dallas

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       There is nothing to worry about.
      They can only look back 4 years for back-taxes.

  • Asd

    Nick,

    Be careful about what you admit to on the internet.  Everything you just said in this video could be used against you in court.  I recommend you remove this video from your site immediately.

  • Flig_in_Detroit

    I don’t know what to say about this one.  I don’t like giving up a third of my income for taxes either but I think the whole “tax” game is simply played so that people will feel how much is being pulled out of the economy by the government so that they put a check on it.  It would be emotionally much easier on us if we never saw the income to begin but the act of parting with money we have been given causes us to be engaged more as citizens.  I think we all understand that if it weren’t for government and taxes there would be no society and hence no income anyway.   If it weren’t for society, most of us would not be here because somewhere along the line, one or most of our recent ancestors would not have made it-or, if we had been “lucky” enough to be born we might have only made it to half our current age anyway.  I can’t say for sure that it is better to be born than unborn or to live rather than to die.  But….”I” have accepted that life just is and I am doing my best to enjoy the ride for as along as I can.  I enjoy it enough that I have chosen to bring two more lives (replacements for my wife and I) into the World and they seem to have accepted this “gift” or “curse” (depending upon the viewpoint).  “I” “Love” them.  The words are in in quotes because I think we have ascertained in previous lectures that these are simply chemical reactions.  All life is chemical in nature.  The entire universe is chemical or atomic or subatomic in nature and we are not separate from it.  We are simply part of it.  We and all matter are simply swirling eddies of energy in the universe.  We shouldn’t take ourselves any more seriously than that.

  • http://www.richnewbold.co.uk/ Richard

    If you are a small business they tax you to death: first on profits, then on staff wages, and when you spend what’s left over that’s taxed too. There are ways around most taxes, some easy, some requiring specialist help, but small businesses may not have the means or inclination to engage in them.

    Morally speaking, anybody who claims we’re duty bound to pay tax is mistaken in my eyes. Sure, when we speak about services such as welfare or healthcare it’s easy to make the case that we should all be contributing, but if you see first hand how the government wastes money on such a grand scale you’d never give them another penny.

    54? You could thriving, not falling apart!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhW0ENr6YXA

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       Life is fundamentally useless.
      This guy keeps himself amused.  It doesn’t cost money and doesn’t bother anyone else.
      All good. 

      • http://www.richnewbold.co.uk/ Richard

        Indeed. So much better to have fun and keep oneself amused.

  • Emmazedbend

    Very interesting post, you had a great presence of mind at such a young age. I think the notion of tax can bring out the rebellious in people mainly because governments waste so much of it and also because they don’t plan for the long term so they spend the whole lot in their term of parliament to give the electorate ‘goodies’ – this doesn’t endear me to paying tax.
    I’ve always worked PAYE (pay as you earn) so I had no choice in the matter. Had I had a choice I would have worked enough to pay the least tax possible (for the aforementioned reasons).

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       At a very early age, I decided that life was very silly.
      It fell into questions of `getting involved` or not ………. I may do a video on it.

      • Emmazedbend

        Yes I would like one of those – look forward to it.

  • Anne Panne

    For me it is the other way around. The taxes never bothered me that much. I was quite happy to chip in. When I was in my late teens I lived a couple of years out on the street, so I recon I thought of it like a membership fee.
    Not even as a farmer, with all of it’s paperwork just to get to pay the taxes, it has bothered me a lot.
    Not until now. MMT, Zarlenga and all that makes me wonder about the whole system.
    But the “chip in” membership bit still hold true.

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       Yes, maybe `tax` should be sold as more of a `chip in membership` thing; as opposed to the `essential evil` that it appears as now. 

    • Anne Panne

       The wasteful conduct of the government has unlike Emma, not concerned me much.
      I attribute this to the human factor. No private organization I’ve worked for, has been any better.
      The ever growing control regime, however, is a bit worrying. If a private organization becomes too oppressive in this matter, you can just walk away. Difficult to walk away completely from the state.
      Nick! Wouldn’t the lax tax regime of the south of Europe have to go, if the EU shall survive?  At least that’s what they tell us?

      • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

         In many ways, the Med countries tax regimes are not so different from the northern.

        In the end, I think the northern will end up more like the southern.
        That is, forget the tax and think more `life-style`.  The Med types just haven’t bought in to the commercial world like the northerners…….and I think the commercial world will change before the mind-set of the southerners changes~!

  • axionication1

    Bugger… Didn’t imagine you as an interior decorating poof… thought of you more as a Marmaduke Surfaceblow type character.
    Joking.

    Most people, given the opportunity, would pay less/no tax. Most people, given the need, will grasp for help. All to common. Nothing special. Confessing to it…?…well that’s special.

    Any more of you lot & the world would be in a financial pickle:).

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       Which would be worse – The world in a financial pickle, or the world with more social misfits in it~?

      • axionication1

        I generally greatly enjoy social misfits!… so it would need to be the pickle thing.

  • Garryentropy

    ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, + et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

    • JP

      Bollocks.  Absolution for a man who has committed no crime, save that of the modern crime of intelligence? He needs a good purging of that insidious fiat, central banking, money meme, human usury. All is usury.
      Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritusomnis satanica potestas, omnis incursioinfernalis adversarii, omnis legio,omnis congregatio et secta diabolica.Ergo draco maledicteet omnis legio diabolicaadjuramus te.Cessa decipere humanas creaturas,eisque aeternae Perditionis venenum propinare.Vade, Satana, inventor et magisteromnis fallaciae, hostis humanae salutis.Humiliare sub potenti manu dei,contremisce et effuge, invocato anobis sancto et terribili nomine,quem inferi tremunt.Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine.Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servirete rogamus, audi nos.Ut inimicos sanctae Ecclesiae humiliare digneris,te rogamus, audi nosTerribilis Deus de sanctuario suo.Deus Israhel ipse truderit virtutemet fortitudinem plebi Suae.Benedictus deus. Gloria patri.

      • Garryentropy

        A confession deserves an absolution.

  • http://www.belfast-architects.co.uk/ Alan

     Was wondering if attitudes about tax and the services they pay for are coloured by the socio economic group we come from. If those around you are not the right connections, and the old girl next door is trying to live on a state pension after spending her life working Monday to Friday in some poorly paid job do you see the need for safety nets more clearly?

    • axionication1

      Yes, that is very true.

      I have paid considerably more in tax than I have extracted. It does not bother me as long as I frame it ( which I generally do) within the scenario you speak of.

      There are abusers, top to bottom, that is the nature of it I guess. The fact that so much abuse takes place within a perfectly legal framework is what sparks my ire.

      When all is said & done: I am grateful to not have had to use the overwhelming majority of my tax contribution.

      • http://www.belfast-architects.co.uk/ Alan

         Yes agree.

        Many problems with the system, trough feeders all the way through it, centralisation, unnecessary government activity, wars, self promotion, attempts to control, acting for vested interests……………..

        Many people have few options from birth. Family poor, perhaps not academically able, no worthwhile connections, go to bog standard school, surrounded by all sorts of dubious roll models.  A humanitarian streak and self interest suggests that this should not be ignored.

  • axionication1

    Yes, all engineered Legal/Accounting psychopathy. The players are numb to the spell.