Taxes, not migrants: what's really emptying your wallet
An anecdote from Catalonia shows that the state, through taxes and fees, drains more from your pocket than migrants do. The 'invasion' as a fiscal distraction.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
What's really emptying your wallet: taxes, not migrants
There's an anecdote that sums up the debate about the so-called "invasion": a resident of an area of Catalonia with a high proportion of migrant residents says that no immigrant has ever stolen a single euro from him in his entire life. Nor has any Catalan. The ones who have emptied his wallet, he insists, are local councils, the police and the tax office. In other words, the state.
The discussion about the arrival of migrants as an economic threat usually leaves out the fiscal data. There is talk of competition for services, pressure on housing and crime, but rarely does anyone put on the table how much income tax, social security contributions or local fees take from any worker's payslip. The "invasion" narrative thus serves a political function: shifting taxpayers' discontent towards foreigners.
Some quarters maintain that the "invasion" already peine years ago and that the next step will be seeing migrants holding positions in the administration and in politics. The argument appeals to antiestéticar rather than to the population register. Meanwhile, what squeezes your pocket month after month is the tax system, with a revenue-raising capacity that no shipwreck or border fence can stop.
If anyone is looking for the culprit behind their end-of-month accounts, they should check their payslip. That's where the answer lies, in the income tax box. And yet nobody protests against it.
There's an anecdote that sums up the debate about the so-called "invasion": a resident of an area of Catalonia with a high proportion of migrant residents says that no immigrant has ever stolen a single euro from him in his entire life. Nor has any Catalan. The ones who have emptied his wallet, he insists, are local councils, the police and the tax office. In other words, the state.
The discussion about the arrival of migrants as an economic threat usually leaves out the fiscal data. There is talk of competition for services, pressure on housing and crime, but rarely does anyone put on the table how much income tax, social security contributions or local fees take from any worker's payslip. The "invasion" narrative thus serves a political function: shifting taxpayers' discontent towards foreigners.
Some quarters maintain that the "invasion" already peine years ago and that the next step will be seeing migrants holding positions in the administration and in politics. The argument appeals to antiestéticar rather than to the population register. Meanwhile, what squeezes your pocket month after month is the tax system, with a revenue-raising capacity that no shipwreck or border fence can stop.
If anyone is looking for the culprit behind their end-of-month accounts, they should check their payslip. That's where the answer lies, in the income tax box. And yet nobody protests against it.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (17 replies).
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