You may have caught the news this morning that well-known Hollywood actor Wesley Snipes (Blade) has been given a three-year jail sentence for wilfully evading tax returns (and thus tax) back in 1999-2001.
Given the sentencing nowadays one could be forgiven for thinking that there is something amiss in terms of this sentence? And you would be right - after all he didn't accidentally kill somebody, or all the other 'bad' things you could do to earn three years or more...
You could ask 'why isn't he given ten years penal community work on top of financial penalties or other such useful contributions to society?'
Well - the real issue is that Governments don't want to encourage behaviour of tax evasion of any sort as there is the real worry that no tax means that society breaks down in 24 hours.
That's why. Because we are a society that relies upon taxation. And we apparently can't survive without it. Which makes you wonder why we are not a little more careful in the way in which we distribute it (see previous blog entries for example)?
The last few days nationally also provide us with a glimpse of how deep-seated this affects us all. Source and distribution are two sides of the same (tax) coin so to speak....
If only we were as diligently penal with those who squander it...........(see plethora of tax misuse on google).............
