It All Comes Down To Taxation

[runner]

when I lived in the US, the government would take out 30% of my income, and I wasn't even making very much. the US used to be a prosperous country, but they taxed and taxed and now the government is an out of control waste machine. what do those taxes get me? I didn't get free healthcare or anything. it was just wasted money I pissed down the toilet.

how much taxes do Thais have to pay? almost nothing. one day, Thais might even be richer than Americans.

[henryalleman]

Thais having a lower IQ than other races

oh yeh? white one?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

You can come to your own ethical conclusions of the data or the cause of the differences, but this is the data.

Relying on wiki to make an argument is pretty wet. Dunno about that IQ list - pretty unreliable wouldn't you say? I mean, every time you leave a country there Tony, their average IQ automatically jumps 20 points.....

people who always throwing in Wikipedia are intellectual lazy and gullible, because Wikipedia is one of the most questionable sources and can be manipulated very easy has it have been proven in the past.

Why instead not Google a while and visit websites whit different opinions. And maybe reading a few good books will help also.

I always neglect postings who refer to Wiki, because those posters are just parrots.

[Spee]

I for one agree with Tony's comments on western nation taxation and collection methodology, both of which are absolutely tyrannical and draconian. As recently as a few hundred years ago, people went to revolution and war over this sort of nationalized theft of economic freedom.

As for the taxation in Thailand, I don't claim to know about the law or what people should be paying. We do have to make a small annual payment for our house and truck but that's about it. I would suspect there are sales taxes built into gas and grocery prices.

With respect to assessing and collecting, I think this topic has come up before and a point was made that for a large segment of the population, it would cost more in time and effort to collect taxes, that the tax revenue itself.

It is worth remembering (as we in the west have long forgotten) that national taxes should be to pay for things that are in the national interest, such as the military. For anything that is not in the national interest, the national government should stay out of the loop and let the regional and local governments handle it. For all intents and purposes, Thailand seems to operate this way. Like any other country, Thailand is not perfect, but I hope they would never stoop down to the nanny state, statist policies of the major western nations.