Who pays for the banquet

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In the famous Soviet comedy "Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession" there is such an episode: the house manager, who has fallen into the past and pretends to be a tsar, asks a question - Wait a minute! At whose expense is this banquet? Who will pay? To which he gets the answer - In any case, not us. They say that in the original version the answer sounded like this - People, father, people!

We have heard more than once that the Russians for the ruling elite and their entourage are just an electorate, designed to ensure the appearance of the legitimacy of their power. But the new law on elections, which abolished the required turnout threshold, allows us to be completely excluded from the so-called “elections”. So who are we for the authorities? We're the ones who pay for this whole banquet.

Let's talk about the so-called government or budget money. Don't be fooled by the name. There is no state or budget money!

Have you ever wondered where the money in the budget comes from? Taxes, various deductions? Right. But who pays for it all? At whose expense is the banquet? For our us you!

Don't believe me? Let's see the official statistics for 2015. What items does the revenue side of the budget consist of?

So: personal income tax - 10.4%, property tax - 4%. It turns out 14.4%

Further: VAT - 15.7%, excise - 4%. That's 19.7%

In total, this gives 34.7%, i.e. more than 1/3 of the budget.

With personal income tax and property tax, everything is more or less clear. These are explicit taxes, which we are well aware of. But in fact, our tax burden does not end there. We pay taxes every day, but now in a hidden form.

For most people, the terms VAT, excise taxes, duties, etc. rather abstract concepts - “we are not engaged in business, it does not concern us”. In fact, as far as it goes. Without realizing it, we pay these taxes every day.

We are all consumers. We consume goods and services every day. And the capitalist, if, of course, he does not set himself the goal of going down the drain, includes excise taxes, VAT and other deductions in the cost of goods or services. VAT is the most levied tax and we pay it every time we buy something or use any paid service. Whether we like it or not, it's a fact. This is perhaps the only tax that cannot be avoided. You may not pay income tax or social security contributions. For example, if you receive a salary "in an envelope" or work for yourself without registering as an individual entrepreneur. You can avoid paying someone else's VAT if you only live on a completely subsistence economy and without electricity, the Internet and cellular communications. If you are reading this text, it means that you are paying VAT for an Internet provider or mobile operator. Just like you paid for it when buying a device through which you access the Internet.

In general, you may not even consider what the revenue side of the budget consists of. Absolutely everything that goes into the budget is earned by you and me.

We often hear - oligarch such and such, last year, earned so many billions of rubles. At the same time, few people understand that this oligarch himself did not earn a dime. He appropriated what others had earned for him. Indeed, it is naive to believe that there is a certain “spherical” capitalist in a vacuum who is able to make money on his own. How much oil can some oil company owner sell if all the hired workers leave him tomorrow? Or what income will the owner of the retail chain receive if he is left alone?

The capitalist's only source of income is the appropriation of surplus value. Simply put, any capitalist lives by appropriating the results of the labor of his employees. This means that absolutely any deductions and taxes are paid from the money that we have earned. Others simply do not exist. Therefore, no matter how a particular tax or deduction is called, we must always clearly understand that this is money earned by us. It is we who pay, not the capitalist. The capitalist is only forced to share some of the money he has appropriated.

Yes, huge sums go to the budget from the sale of natural resources, but we must understand that hundreds of thousands of people work in the resource-extracting industry. Contrary to the prevailing opinion among a certain circle of people, oil and gas flow through pipes not because of their "talents" and efficiency, but thanks to the work of hundreds of thousands of ordinary workers. I repeat once again - if it were not for you and me, then all these oligarchs would not even "earn" on their travel cards.

It is very important to understand, to accept the fact that we always pay for everything. Even if it is not so obvious at first glance. The bourgeois state has no other way of receiving money. And we must clearly understand that any extortion, no matter whether it goes to the state treasury or someone else's pocket, will ultimately be passed on to you and me.

Let's look at the situation using the example of the notorious "Plato". You can often hear - yes, it’s a pity for truckers, but I have enough of my own problems, let them figure it out themselves. I myself am not a trucker, I don’t use their services. All this does not concern me.

As of May 2017, 833,000 cars are registered in the Plato system (Plato). The tariff is 1.9 rubles / km. The average mileage of a heavy truck per year is 100,000 km. By simple calculations, we get a figure of 158 billion 270 million rubles per calendar year. Those. the cost of cargo transportation in Russia will increase by 158 billion rubles. Do you think this amount will be included in the cost of the transported cargo? Will we feel it? No doubt about it. On average, every resident of Russia will pay more than 1,000 rubles for Platon during the year. Of course, this is a very rough estimate. The amount, going through the chain, may well increase. The task is not to calculate with mathematical precision how much this tax will cost each of us, but to show that this will affect each of us. Do not forget that Platon is a private company; it’s not even our “native” state that will get into our pockets, but rather wealthy individuals. Well, whether we like it or not, we will act as sponsors for them.

We can also recall the so-called tax on Mikhalkov's “blanks”, which most of us pay periodically without even knowing it.

All these "invisible" extortions ultimately lead to higher prices, a decrease in our real incomes and, as a result, to higher inflation.

Now you know who and for whom in capitalist Russia "pays" for the banquet, the continuation of which the capitalists constantly demand. Think about it, do you want to do this?