"Taxation With Real Representation?" Common Sense By Paul Jacob April 10, 2003 Oh, we Americans grumble about taxes, yes we do. I know because I'm right at the front of the line of grumblers and it's tax time. Grrrr . . . But seems they don't grumble so much in Switzerland. So says my friend Gregory Fossedal in his new book, Direct Democracy in Switzerland. "[I]f the Swiss are unhappy with their taxes," Fossedal writes, "they are probably less unhappy than in most other countries. Asked if they would trade their tax laws for the tax laws of Germany, Japan or the United States, most Swiss quickly answer no." Fossedal reports that Swiss income taxes are among the lowest in the industrialized world. They are also generally simpler and easier to calculate. And Swiss citizens get to vote — directly — on their own taxes. Under initiative and referendum, he writes, "it is more difficult to raise taxes in Switzerland than in perhaps any other country. Yet, taxes are raised and altered from time to time. And when they are, there is less resentment than elsewhere, because the burdens are self-imposed." In the US, by contrast, many of the big tax changes have been imposed by narrow margins, more as a result of pressure-group lobbying than any judicious consideration of the merits. And Dane Waters of the Initiative & Referendum Institute points out that even here in America, states with the initiative process tend to have lower taxes and less wasteful spending. When it comes to taxation, people deserve a vote — not a vote by the politicians, but a vote by the people. That's real representation. This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob. |