Some times, Reuters can prove to be useful. Link via Marginal Revolution.
I've now got the perfect term for explaining the twisted and immoral logic behind income taxation: Pagare tutti, pagare meno. It's Italian for "everyone pays, everyone pays less."
The good news is that the Sicilian Mafia has slashed the rates it charges "clients." The bad news is that it has vastly expanded its client base."Pagare tutti, pagare meno," roughly translated as "everybody pays, everybody pays less," is the new slogan Sicilian magistrates and mayors are using to describe what the Mafia is doing these days.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
By spreading the reach of taxes to more people, you can reduce the amount taken from each individual so as to appear "revenue-neutral" or as a way to "save taxpayer money." Legitimate economic entities can charge less for their goods if they can get them sold on a larger scale, so you often see this kind of free market thinking utterly perverted by statists and anti-capitalists. From fraudulent programs like Social Security to publicly funding political campaigns, you find a spectrum of people - Democrats and Republicans - supporting an increase in the breadth of legalized theft in order to be "fiscally responsible" and in order to keep that damned important safety net up off the concrete floor.
Pagare tutti, pagare meno = taxing income = let's screw everyone so each of you is screwed a bit less
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