Why does it seem that people hate paying taxes? Taxes are a
pretty divisive issue politically, at least here in the United States; some
think taxes should be higher, some that they should be lower. But I've
never met anyone who was excited about paying taxes.
Why?
I have two hypotheses:
First, free-will is important. At some level, I believe that
everyone wants freedom of choice over what they do. Taxes aren't exempt
from our drive to have control over those things that are important to
us. It was the fuse that set off the American revolution; "No
taxation without representation" was essentially a rallying cry for
those who wanted at least representative control over the taxes they were to
pay.
As evidence, in
a 2001 poll, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was ranked as the
least favorable government agency (out of 20 total agencies--ranging from
NASA to the CIA to BATF). In a
1996 Roper poll, 66% of respondents indicated that they felt either
"Dissatisfied", "Angry" or "Boiling" when asked
about doing their taxes. Interestingly, though, when asked what
bothered them most about taxes, 71% of respondents indicated they were more
bothered by how the government used their taxes than they were about the
amount they paid in taxes. It's a control issue; it's the idea that
"this is my money, and you can never do as good a job as I can in
spending it".
Second, I think most people are accustomed to the traditional
"customer/supplier" relationship. We are conditioned to
expect an exchange in most commercial relationships: we give money in
exchange for goods and services--or we provide goods and services in exchange
for money. We like the idea of trade, and it's the basis of our
commercial interactions.
But Americans long ago stopped acting as if taxes were simply an
exchange of money for government services. There's clearly a portion of
the taxes that are paid that represent each payer's proportional costs for
some public services, but there's also a transfer of wealth mechanism that
involves those with higher income paying for programs benefitting those with
lower incomes.
A 2011
poll of Americans found that 60% of taxpayers felt that they were
getting "a bad deal" when asked what they felt about the government
services they receive in exchange for their taxes. This notion of
exchange is an important one; people like to feel that they're getting what
they pay for; and people don't like to pay for things they aren't getting.
I'm not interested in a political argument here--the issue here
isn't whether we should pay more or less in taxes; the issue is the
remarkably negative sentiment that most Americans seem to have regarding
taxes. I know this idea of "exchange" is a hairy one; someone
will say that, in an abstract sense, the wealth transfer mechanism is a
payment for the government's service of providing a civilized, first-world
society; and someone else will argue that government doesn't have a monopoly
on doing things to eliminate poverty, taking care of destitute children and
providing access to education. I don't want to have that argument here;
the simple point here is that there is general dissatisfaction with the
"deal" people feel they're getting; they feel it's not a fair
exchange.
So what does this imply about human psychology, and more
specifically, about human organizations? First, that the idea of
control is an important one; people hate being forced to do something--even
if it's something they would otherwise probably want to do. I should
point out that even the most anarchist anti-governement folks out there value
safety, harmony, a civil society, overall human happiness. Nobody wants
a country devoid of those things. And there are countless Americans
who, on one hand, bemoan the taxes they pay, and on the other, give
impressive amounts of money to charities that work every day to solve human
problems all over the world; people don't have a problem investing in things
to make the world a better place--they just want to be able to make the
decision on their own.
And people in our organizations simply want to be able to have
control over how they do what they do. I've found that if people
really, truly have freedom of control over their work, they tend to
flourish. And, interestingly, you can often approach them and propose a
change in the way they're doing things--propose it using reason instead of
force--and they'll usually change what they're doing, quite willingly, by
choice. Control over others is not the only way to accomplish things in
organizations: it's expedient, but the societal side-effects are
terrible.
And the idea of choice: people don't want to be trapped in a
relationship that's not a real exchange. If they aren't getting their
money's worth, they want alternatives. If their public school isn't
doing a good job of educating their children, they want to be able to take
the money they pay for public schooling, and use it to pay for a private
school.
The same is true in an organization: people should understand that
if they aren't receiving excellent service from others within your
organization, they have the option to seek out an alternative way to achieve
their mission. The organizational structure cannot be so rigid that the
notion of choice is foreign. There's a beautiful tension that arises
when all parties understand that we have choices--we have alternatives.
Suppliers become focused on providing excellence in service, and customers
are more engaged, because they know they aren't captive to their current
supplier.
