Do tax incentives (or taxation as a deterrent) work on you? Do they cause you to change your behaviour at all?
I'm wondering because they don't work on me. I don't even think about it.
But then I must either not make very much money or have my life arranged in an unusual way, because I find my tax burden negligible. If all the money I paid in taxes ended up in my pocket, it wouldn't be enough to improve my quality of life. My savings account might be a bit bigger, I might be able to pay off my mortgage like a year sooner once I get a condo, but overall I wouldn't notice the difference.
For those of you who do notice your taxes, do tax incentives or deterrents work on you?
3 comments:
Having all my taxes back in my pocket would definitely improve my quality of life, but only if all the services I get for my taxes would also still exist. That's impossible, and I wouldn't expect it.
But in purely numerical terms, having xx additional dollars to use for food, rent, dog care, entertainment, and such, would definitely improve the quality of my life.
I don't complain about the amount of taxes I pay or feel it's unfair. In fact, I actually appreciate paying taxes in Canada, because paying taxes in the US made me so angry (involuntarily supporting invasions, etc.).
So I notice my taxes, but not in a bad way.
Tax incentives do not change my behavior. Deterrents might, but I can't think of any right now.
Alcohol has deterrents on it. Apparently it's very heavily taxed but it's all included in the price at the LCBO so we don't notice. And that I do not mind one bit. I totally agree that it's a luxury and an indulgence, and I don't mind at all my money going into government coffers in exchange. It feels win-win to me.
Oh yeah. In the US, that goes by the ridiculous name "sin tax". Cigarettes must have that here, too. I wonder if that ever stops one person from smoking? I know sometimes smokers use the money they'd save as a motivation to quit, but that's different than the tax actually being a deterrent.
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