What is the relationship between taxes and aspiration? A lot of you will probably say that most of us aspire not to pay our taxes. When you think about it, there is a lot of truth in that. After all, there is no positive advantage given to a conscientious tax payer to someone who does not even bother to register to pay taxes. Paying taxes has become equated by most people as something negative. Just paying taxes requires a lot of effort for the tax payer or the withholding agent. Starting off with filling out the rather lengthy forms and providing the required attachments, then lining up to actually file the forms and make the payments. This should really be simplified and made more taxpayer friendly but that is another story.

Is there something that can be done for people to actually want to pay their taxes? Sure there is, but only if the government and lawmakers decide that it is about time to do something about it. With tax collection efficiency going down, the tax base eroding and the Bureau of Internal Revenue falling short of collection targets, it certainly is about time to do something for people to want to pay their taxes.

The BIR must come up with ways to provide incentives to people to pay their taxes and certainly more than their “premyo sa resibo” program where people use receipts as raffle coupons. This program does not actually provide any incentive to the tax payer, as a matter of fact, I doubt if the raffle winners are even tax payers. It is about time for the government to give back something directly to the taxpayer by treating them like a VIP.

In the commercial world, the best customers are given the best service and the best deals available. Individual taxpayers should be treated the same way and the more they pay taxes the better treatment they get and they should also get entitled to certain privileges and benefits. Keeping track of the taxes paid by the individual should be done on a cumulative basis so that it establishes the legitimacy of where all his money came from and still be properly acknowledged by the government when he decides to stop working due to retirement, health reasons or simply enjoy the fruits of his labor.

What are some of the things that the government can do to reward the conscientious individual taxpayer? Several things immediately come to mind, depending on the cumulative taxes the individual has paid, make the renewal cycles for licenses, permits and documents much longer for the better taxpayer. If for example a driver’s license is normally good for 3 years, anyone who has paid more than a million pesos in taxes in his lifetime should be given a license for 4 years and an additional year for every additional million pesos in taxes he has paid. If you can give a person a permanent TIN ID and he pays so much in taxes, I think the least the government can do is to reciprocate and give that taxpayer an extended passport, firearms license, professional license and whatever other documents it issues that is periodically renewed.

Another thing that the government can provide is a special help desk or one stop shop for taxpayers who have earned the right to be treated like a VIP. Similar to banks that have private banking clients who get their own special place and private bankers who provide personalized service where you do not have to line up for anything, instead you are serviced from the comfort of your couch while drinking coffee. If the BIR can afford to spend millions of pesos for raffle prizes, it should be able to afford to treat their good taxpayers much better. These help desks should be able to help the VIP taxpayer with all his government related transactions, such as paying his real estate taxes, dealing with the SSS, Phil-Health, Pag-IBIG, license renewals and so on.

If the government is really serious about controlling money laundering, what better way than to require the matching of tax payments and asset acquisition, such as homes, cars, and other big ticket items. How can anyone justify his acquisition of a million peso car if he has never paid a single centavo in taxes? More so when non-taxpayers are able to acquire million dollar homes and yachts. Hopefully, this should expose people who have acquired their funds through illegal means and put an end, if not slow down criminality and corruption.

The government and specially the BIR should treat its taxpayers like the goose that lays the golden eggs and not as milking cows to be exploited. The stick has been used for a very long time and it has only been effective in corrupting the whole system, it is about time the carrot is used to make the people aspire to become legitimate taxpayers.

(Comments may be sent to chua.george@yahoo.com)