Private tax collectors get nod from Washington

Editor’s note: Ian Hodge is a regular columnist for Business Reform Magazine, the leading Christian business magazine with over 100,000 readers. Each issue of Business Reform features practical advice on operating successfully in business while glorifying God.

So the government is now planning on using private tax collectors to collect an estimated $78 billion in outstanding taxes, with promises of up to 25% commission for successful collection.

We understand the government’s dilemma. A tax system, alleged to be voluntary, is giving people meaningful choice when it comes to taxes. And people are increasingly taking advantage of it.

For the government and bureaucrats, however, this presents a dilemma. No tax money, no grand schemes to save the nation. And salvation is, after all, the purpose of government today. It plans to save people like you and me from all sorts of problems. If there is unemployment, government goes to the rescue. They’ll find jobs for us, or create them. If there is a health crisis, no matter, the government will step in and save us from the problems we might create for ourselves.

It seems that we are incapable of solving, with God’s help, our own problems. Fortunately, belief in salvation by politics is at a low ebb, except in the halls of the legislators.

But if government is really serious about saving us, it might first learn to save itself. For we are reminded of another great empire, Rome, that rose and fell, and when it fell, there were some characteristic marks.

Taxation was one of them. As the Empire grew, so did its need for money. Tax farming, the right to collect taxes in a given locality, became a reality of the Roman Empire. Collect at whatever cost became another hallmark, and some historians have noted the use of torture as a legitimate activity to collect the taxes.

The government of the USA is not alone in its need for taxpayers’ money. Computers and the Internet have revolutionized the flow of information. Now, at the click of a mouse button, an individual living in one country can find a way to invest in another country and legally get around local taxation laws. Or, he can buy in another country, often sidestepping import duties and tariffs. The result? A tax collection headache for governments around the world.

Pressure has been placed on those nations who build their wealth by offering offshore investment services with privacy. The pressure will remain, but the writing is on the wall for the high taxing nations. Lower taxes or else citizens will shift their wealth outside the taxing jurisdiction. This is the dilemma for the federal government.

At present, it seems intent on following the course of Rome. If so, a once mighty nation will descend from its heights and become another also-ran. It does though, have a choice.

It will be the mark of a great President who can turn the tide against the tax collectors and instead offer citizens government protection of their wealth, rather than government confiscation.