A worthy election volunteer

By Per and M.C. Kurowski

Chapter One: I recently had the opportunity to travel to a country in Central America with widespread poverty. The airplane I was on carried at least 30 young Americans, all of them between 16 and 18 years old. They belonged to one of the Peace Corp´s programs I did not even know still existed. Upon arriving at the local airport, I watched them load their gear onto a truck and head off, facing two years of hard labor in the interior of the country. Without delving into matters of cost-benefit ratios of this enterprise, I must confess that this evidently well-intentioned and healthy volunteer effort moved me deeply.

Chapter Two: I returned home from my trip to Central America and was promptly hit by press reports about the costs involved in our election process. Most of these costs were to related to services that, should democracy really mean something, could easily be supplied by well-intentioned and healthy volunteers. This should be one of the principal priorities for the newly appointed members of our electoral organization.

Chapter Three: I spent the recent Carnival vacations in Margarita. My eldest daughter came to me with a comment about something she had seen on the beach. I enjoyed the story and asked her to put it into writing. The following is the transcription of her notes.

“Adventure on Playa Guacuco by Mercedes Christina – Age 15:

There we were, on the beach, full of family spirit, without a care in the world; a healthy environment to be admired and yearned for; never perturbed but for the few moments when the eventual topless European appeared on the horizon.

The beach is a wonderful place. One is always learning about the latest rumors while the children (a classification awarded to all those younger than I) play with their surf boards or ask for money to buy ice cream or empanadas from the local vendors who, because you are their “favorite client”, generously charge triple the going sales price. Your family keeps smiling, Mom reads a good book, and I, being the well educated daughter I am, comply with my usual duty of making sure Dad receives his daily exercise by playing racket ball.

Just as we began competing to see who would replace Pete Sampras, the ball got away from me and I ran to retrieve it. As I bent down to pick it up, I noticed out of the corner of my eye the presence of a pair of black boots. I straightened up with the intention of asking the owner where he had acquired them since they would definitely have been a great addition to my own collection of footwear. Upon raising my head, I was treated to the fright of my life. The owner of the boots was a longhaired Rambo who was in turn flanked by two lieutenants.

The three soldiers were dressed in camouflage and the only possible reason for their being there in that particular outfit must have been to blend into the palm trees. Given the fact that it was Carnival, their bulletproof vests should probably have been more like egg proof vests. Each one of them was armed to the teeth, and since I am far from an expert in ballistics and armor, their rifles seem more like large cannons.

All this impelled me to reflect on the time and effort our politicians spend supposedly drafting plans to insure the safety of our borders. Apure is the state normally mentioned when adults discuss these problems. My sense of orientation may be poor, but from what I understand, Margarita is not a candidate for surveillance due to border problems. There is quite a distance between Trinidad and Margarita.

Or could it be something else (something my father often talks to me about); that the idea of what adventure tourism should be as perceived by our government is not quite what it should be. They not only scared the wits out of the Europeans, but out of the Venezuelans as well. I believe that instead of attracting foreigners, they are driving them away. For the moment, they should send Rambo and his pals to Apure, where their work will be far more productive.”

Conclusion: Obviously, I am a proud father. I am proud of Mercedes as well as of her sisters. Since I cannot find a sufficiently viable and coherent political proposal out there which will insure improvement of the lamentable situation our country is in, I believe my children form part of a generation of Venezuelans that must necessarily take charge of their own destinies.

However, before they send us packing, I would really like to instill in them a real love for democracy. In this sense, I ask the new officials of our electoral council to forget about teachers and professors when planning the execution of our next presidential elections and give our 15 to 18 year olds a chance to really participate. They are the principal source of generous volunteer service well as the primary victims of our electoral mistakes.

The taxes we have to pay

It is time for payment of income taxes and I have just complied with my duty as a citizen. I must admit that compared to what I would have paid elsewhere, I personally did not have to pay an exaggerated amount of tax. Why is it then, that I am not satisfied? Could it be that it is because I am being eaten away inside by a suspicion, already bordering on certainty, that my country would be better off had I not paid taxes at all?

On the same day I finished struggling through my tax forms, I read in the press about PDVSA´s fiscal contribution for 1997. This contribution amounted to all the Bolivares in the world. Upon cranking the numbers on my calculator which went into an exponential mode, I found that this boils down to a contribution per capita of Bs. 200,000 for every Venezuelan citizen, rich and poor, young and old.

I imagine that in the international world of taxation, these Bs. 200,000, which translate to US$ 400 per year, don’t qualify for a position at the top of the list. If, however, they are expressed in terms of some of the public services offered, these figures are numbing.

Every retired Venezuelan, those we hold dear to our hearts and affectionately refer to as “los viejitos”, is due to receive Bs. 50,000 per month in retirement pay. Using the technology provided for by modern accounting, i.e. re-expression, we can affirm that every Venezuelan, rich and poor, young and old have contributed, via the cession of his or her portion of oil income, an equivalent of 4 months of retirement pay to the nation’s coffers. These figures would undoubtedly qualify us, as taxpayers, for mention in the Guinness World Book of Records.

All of this is before we even get into what we all pay in sales tax, (VAT) which by law must not be specified in the final sales price of any product. This only hides even further the magnitude of the buyer’s contribution to the above mentioned coffers. Is this restriction due simply to bad conscience or to outright hooliganism? I will let others decide.

And all of this before we include the other hidden taxes such as the sky high telephone rates we must pay because the nation has sold concessions at elevated prices in order to raise fresh resources. Authorities (in this case Conatel) have already gone on record as stating that during the next bid for a concession of a cellular phone system, we “must not commit the same mistake of selling it cheaply, in obvious detriment of the interests of the State. We must try to get more than US$ 100 million for it”. Obviously, those US$ 100 million must be repaid by the end user, by way of higher tariffs. Obviously, nobody has considered the right of the common citizen to be able to communicate economically. One of these days it will occur to someone to announce the letting of a concession for pure air.

And all of this before we include the hidden taxes represented by the abominable public services we receive.

And all of this before we include the immense contribution of a healthy portion of the physicians, professors, teachers and other professionals that work and comply with their obligations, earning pay that is well below what it should be.

And all of this before the contribution of companies in the form of taxes on assets, which must be paid whether the company is in the black or in the red and which ultimately find their way to the final consumer.

And all this before we consider the astronomic taxes incurred due to a string of devaluations, the impact of which is proven when we see that never, before or after Columbus, has the public sector been so large in comparison to the private sector. The essence of any neo-liberal model is the reduction of the influence of the public sector on the economy. The tropicalized interpretation of this model by our government officials has allowed them to get rid of all that has become obsolete, that is causing them problems or even worse, that requires investment. It seems that their dream is to keep all fiscal income but without any of the corresponding obligations.

This series of inexhaustible fiscal contributions, voluntary and involuntary, evident and occult, is justified by the threat that, should we not pay up, we will have a monster deficit, inflation will eat us alive, and along with these two specters the big bad wolf will get us as well. Ladies and Gentlemen, inflation has been around for many years and the wolf has been here for some time. It seems to me he is dressed up as the taxman.

Venezuela’s problem cannot be found on the fiscal contribution side of the coin. Venezuela’s problem is found, with crystal clarity, on the fiscal spending side. This is why, by paying my income tax, I could be causing damage to my country. Something like giving drugs to an addict. Something like giving an alcoholic a bottle of rum. Something like treason.

The next time you see a dirty, tattered and hungry child abandoned in the streets without hope, remember that he has also contributed Bs. 200,000 to the Venezuelan State in 1997

PS. Fast forward: My tax paradise (nothing as powerful against tax havens than tax heavens)