WHAT’S in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet, asserts William Shakespeare. “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,” impertinently answers Gertrude Stein.
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In a way both are right in drawing attention to the way names work, not only as indicators of something referred to, but also often carrying less obvious emotional messages.
Take the most hated word in western democracies: tax. Historically the word has been used in many ways: a gradient may be a tax to a runner; a witness can be taxed with lying and of course there is the way it is most commonly used to refer to a compulsory monetary contribution required by government.
In every way the word is used it carries negative connotations of difficulty, burden, demand and is synonymous with notions of struggle, stress, strain; it is a word that now carries these negatives in its very sight and sound.
But what is a tax in the economic and political sense? It is a contribution to the pool of funds that the community uses to gain assets and services that are deemed necessary and will not be provided in any other way.
So let’s throw out the nasty old ideogram with its bag of negatives and call it for what it is: the Community Contribution with the positive aura that those words bring.
Axe the ATO and set up the Australian Office of Community Contribution - the AOCC for acronymists; axe the GST and have a Goods and Services Contribution - the GSC; axe the Personal Income Tax and let it be Personal Income Contribution.
I predict that everyone will be happier to make a contribution than pay a tax.
Now in the present system we are often faced with the unpleasant irony that the heaviest “lifters” often turn out to be the most enthusiastic “leaners” when it comes to making their Community Contribution so let’s go further and make the whole system transparent.
Then we will know who make the greatest contributions to the community.
Come on, Aussies, we can do it! Let’s put our poor shoulders to the wheel; let’s put a smile on Boo Hoo’s face; lets make our Community Contributions with grace, generosity, energy and optimism.
- Fred Goldsworthy