The good folks at BC’s Centre for Integral Economics think taxes are like sex.
Both sex and taxes exert strong influences and strange attractions. Taxation—by changing the prices we pay for things like income, or bicycles, or garbage disposal—influences decisions large and small: whether to drive or take the bus, whether to live in the suburbs or the core of the city, whether to buy local or imported carrots…
Ultimately, economics is the study of incentives and of human behaviour. By changing price signals, tax policy creates powerful incentives and disincentives and steers our economy like a ship’s rudder. Small changes can have large effects.
I, for one, think that the sex-tax metaphor is…uh…all wet. But it’s a good read nonetheless.
