Tax a contribution for the greater good

Dear Editor

Re: We are ready to face the consequences 

Thank you Leutogitupaitea Seiuli for your letter. 

While I disagree with you on whether the pastors should pay income tax, I agree that you should take the time to respond to Hollywood Joe as he is arguably a dangerous person.

Dangerous people should be responded to when they exercise their right to free speech exposing their horrific inner thoughts as this person does on a regular basis, so thanks for taking the time. 

All people in a society should be contributing to the greater good of society with the means they have. If they have more means, they should be contributing more. I am just disappointed the government has not seen it right to also tax their own envelopes they receive from people. 

This is hypocritical from a hypocritical government. 

I also think the problems you mention that are festering away in Samoan society are caused by a growing gap between the rich and the poor in Samoan society and taxing the haves will start to address those inequalities by having more money for common goods like education and health. 

These are expensive and it is these taxes that will pay for these common goods if you have a government that is accountable to the people, that is another topic of debate in Samoa though. 

So I agree with the taxing of pastors but I would like to see it go further and that church organizations also pay tax as well as government M.P. on their envelopes. It is important that there is a separation of church and state and to persist in the idea that some people affiliated with the church should be excused from their obligation to the earthly state in which they materially live in is just a recipe for the continued social problems that we are seeing happen in Samoa because of the growing gap between the rich and the poor in Samoa. 

This gap is very well documented by outside organizations who have been studying what is really going on in Samoa. This is the natural consequence of a capitalist society, which is the model that is being adopted for Samoa. 

The most stable countries who accept this model also have a highest tax base and it is the countries with the highest tax base who use these tax dollars to address the economic equalities capitalism and development produce to help the people who lose under this system. 

It is these countries who use these tax dollars to bring more equality of opportunity to the most people in their society that have the happiest measures on the happy index of their people. 

The U.S. does not place very high on closing the wealth gap very high on the happiness scale for developed countries. The pastors benefit if the society they live in is made up of happy people who are not creating chaos which affect them too. Anyway, in the meantime, please don’t stop responding to this dangerous person Hollywood Joe.

 

Wendy Wonder 

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