EDITORIAL - Equitable taxes can eliminate cheating

Manny Pacquiao should not be exempted from paying taxes, as what some congressmen are suggesting. The proposal is stupid, unfair, and cruel to those who religiously pay taxes through the nose. Instead of exempting Pacquiao, he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Pacquiao may be a boxing hero. He may have brought great pride to the country through his chosen field. But so have a great many other Filipinos in a wide variety of interests. If Pacquiao is granted exemption, it will set a precedent for the other great celebrities that have given Filipinos much pride as well.

On the other hand, isn't it cruel to the ordinary taxpayers, they who toil for a pittance and who, by force of circumstance, cannot escape their fate and cheat on their taxes because they are being taxed at the source?

In fact, prosecuting Pacquiao for his tax liabilities provides the government with the golden opportunity to set a fine example. If a global celebrity like Pacquiao cannot escape the taxman's noose, it will send shivers down the spine of the other tax cheats in this country.

But while the government prosecutes Pacquiao, it may do well for it to start reviewing its tax schemes and see whether this is not where the whole problem started from the beginning. For the suspicion is that if government had not been so greedy and had been more equitable, citizens might even find joy in paying up.

But as the tax structure stands today, the government lops off a hefty amount of a citizen's income, leaving him wondering whether it is even worth the effort to contribute to nation building, or whether the alternative isn't more tempting, that is, cheat on one's taxes.

The taxes being levied on anything and everything is the single biggest disincentive to proper tax collection. If only taxes can leave a citizen with his dignity intact, instead of having almost his entire earnings "stolen" by the taxman, perhaps everyone might pay their taxes properly and promptly.

Pacquiao may be a billionaire, but when you pay taxes in the hundreds of millions, it still hurts. Ask any of the taipans if that isn't the reason almost none of them are on any top taxpayers list. The same with ordinary workers, the only difference being that Pacquiao aches in the millions, workers in pennies and cents.

In other words, the pain in paying taxes comes not from taxes themselves but from being taxed cruelly and inequitably. It is unfair for people to work their guts out only to find the government waiting at the dining table to grab almost all that you earned breaking your back. Lower taxes and you raise collections.