Many times I do think about life and how we just have to live in it. Maybe I call it fate, destiny, hard work, luck, or whatever. We are just bound to live in this world and then leave someday. I was telling my younger ones a few days back that it is not really about hard work or luck that makes one wealthy, but it is just about grace.
I saw examples of different people who are working so hard, yet they never got rich, and sometimes we see someone doing that same kind of work and from there becoming extremely rich. So whichever way we all have our fate and our lives to live. Who would be rich would be rich without stress.
So when we talk about the rich, the average, and the poor. These are the classes of livelihoods we have in the world. It's either you fall among any of them. Then maybe you could have a change in the long run. Nobody can tell. But the question here is should these different classes be taxed the same or they should be taxed according to their classes?
Before the fuel subsidy removal, I got into a discussion with my friend about the effect that the subsidy removal would have on average and poor Nigerians and this is because most people of these classes might not be able to afford it the way they did before.
He countered my point of view saying the subsidy removal is the best choice to take. And this is because the subsidy in place was not in favor of the poor and the average class, but in favor of the rich alone. You can ask me why.
The poor and average would buy at most just a little fuel to power their small households, many if not all of them don't have a vehicle to ride, they most of the time trek or take public transport, and the nature of their jobs most times doesn’t or just requires little fuel.
But as for the rich who took utmost advantage of the subsidy in place, they are the ones enjoying it the most. They have money to fuel their generators and power their household 24/7. They have a lot of luxurious cars that would require a lot of fuel, and most of them also have companies or industries where they make money from and they use a lot of fuel to power up.
So who is at an advantage? Yet in the end, the government should tax all classes the same amount and pay for the subsidy. How does that make sense? Apart from the issue of subsidies, when it comes to other basic amenities, the poor tend to be less privileged to make good use of them than the rich would.
For example, in a developing community where an average man had to build a bungalow and a rich man who owned an estate was a resident. They have a bad road and then out of their tax to the community, they should make the road from it.
Then the man with a bungalow already built his house without much stress. But the estate owner first had to get tractors to pass that same road and have his land cleared, get lots of lorries trooping in daily on that same road. And the average man with a bungalow just treks along the road all day.
This could also be sampled with electricity. If they were provided with electricity and many other amenities the rich would always be at an advantage. So with that in place, I think it should stand as a reason why the rich need to be taxed more.
This is my response to the HIVE LEARNERS weekly prompt in hive learners community for the Week 126 Edition 3 and the topic to be discussed is THE RICH ALSO PAY
