Even the piecemeal tax increases contained in the Lebanese Ministry of Finance’s 2010 budget proposal are insulting. The private sector and the expatriate community — the two entities that keep the Lebanese economy alive and the government afloat — can’t help but feel that they’re being forced to give more blood to the leeches of the state and still receive nothing in return.
For example, in some countries taxes on cigarettes help cover healthcare costs. In Lebanon, taxes are what the Ministry of Finance, through the Regie Libanaise du Tabac et Tombacs, uses to pay tobacco farmers for their crop, at times registering up to a 500 percent loss. This is insane.
Such complaints are not just the moaning of the wealthy. This is a reaction to the crude policies of a government that, under pressure from donor nations to get its fiscal house in order, will further burden those who already carry it, instead of attempting to lighten the load through measures that are simple common sense.
Lebanon is neither a classic laissez-faire economy that lets businesses run wild and free — it is too corrupt for that — nor is it a typical welfare state which provides education, healthcare and housing for its citizens. Quite simply, it falls between the two stools and instead of seeking to remedy the failings in its national infrastructure and behave like a mature government, it takes the easy route and taxes those whose economic health is predicated on unfettered economic activity.
For years now, Lebanon has prided itself on its fiscal wisdom, boasting that it is this prudence that has kept it from ‘pulling’ an Argentina or a Greece. But that our politicians even talk in those comparisons — that yes, we are looking over the cliff, but no, where others have fallen we will keep our balance — is a testament to their fiscal ineptitude.
The private sector cannot be held responsible for this colossal waste. Should government one day become transparent and accountable, and show it has spent the money we already gave wisely and efficiently, then we could talk about, perhaps, paying more into government coffers.
But that day is a long way off. Until then, quite simply, the private sector should be left well alone. We, the private sector, have kept Lebanon afloat for over 50 years. Let us work; let us employ; let us create; let us spur consumption.
Let us be.
