Pay your taxes: Pay your oppressor

Please excuse citizens who grumble about the new tax regime

The current crisis has put Sri Lankans on the path of unprecedented suffering. Everyone must bear their share of the hardship. Invariably, those who are financially better off must bear a heavier burden. There is clear sense to that notion: first, those who are better off can withstand greater difficulty than those who aren’t; second, those who are better off probably benefitted from the bad policies of the past and should not fuss about parting with those benefits. They certainly benefited from the mindless tax cuts of 2019. In this context, higher income taxes are just a fact of life. So, here we are, each about to eat our share of just deserts – doing our part as good citizens must.

But there is something utterly callous and cruel about the pro-income tax rhetoric in Sri Lanka today.

Taxes fund the State. The State is supposed to be a noble entity that contracts with the citizen to deliver basic services, economic stability, and public security – among a host of other values – in exchange for the citizen’s cooperation. We pay taxes in fulfilment of that contract. So, whenever we hear the virtues of paying taxes, the underlying premise is that the state is noble; that the State can be trusted.

But in Sri Lanka, the State is anything but noble. Since independence, it has maintained a steady track record of killing, disappearing, assaulting, imprisoning, stealing, deceiving, and manipulating citizens. Minorities and young people have borne the brunt of this oppression. As we speak, it is busy doing some of those ignoble things. To uncritically sing the praises of any scheme that resources such an entity further is nothing but a brutal exercise of ethno-religious, and perhaps class, privilege. Check that privilege.

Yes, Sri Lanka needs better road connectivity, and current public spending on education and healthcare is abysmally low. Yet, the scramble to defend the new tax regime appears to suffer from cognitive dissonance about the nature of the Sri Lankan State. How do you expect to pay for highways? You mean the ones that politicians make millions off? How do you expect to pay for the State education system? You mean the one that deprived generations of English-language education, and indoctrinates children into believing they are superior to others? How do you expect to pay for the state healthcare system? You mean the one that stood by discriminatory policies during the COVID-19 pandemic?

None of these questions justify the abandonment of a civic duty to pay higher taxes; nor should they be asked in bad faith just to scuttle necessary efforts to reverse the horrendous tax policies of the past. But citizens ought not to have their intelligence habitually insulted. The reality that the State must increase its tax revenue for the country to survive this crisis should not be sugar-coated with thoughtless accounts of how the state will put this revenue to good use.

Please excuse citizens who grumble about the new tax regime. They see no signs of ‘system change’. No signs of accountability for corruption. No signs of downsizing the bloated patronage structures of the public service and military. Excuse them for being a little sceptical while going along. Do not confuse those who have a genuine distrust of the State with those who wish to evade their civic duty. For it is only natural for citizens who have experienced a long history of state oppression in Sri Lanka to be contemptuous of any scheme that compels them to give their oppressor more money. They know they are likely to be duped again, but they have no choice but to live in hope that things will miraculously change. So, in Sri Lanka, there is no such thing as ‘shut up and pay your taxes’. Pay them, kicking and screaming.