Patriotism and taxes

It’s sometimes said that the only people who’ll leave the country as a result of the 50p tax rate are the unpatriotic ones. A couple of new papers suggest there’s something in this. They show that there’s a strong relationship between patriotism and willingness to pay taxes. This holds in two ways:
1. Countries whose citizens say they are proud of their country (as measured by the International Social Survey Programme) are likely to have smaller black economies than countries with less patriotism. The US, Australia, Ireland and Canada, for example, have high patriotism and small black economies. Korea and Russia have unpatriotic people and large black economies. The causality here, though, might run either way.
2. Within countries, patriotic individuals are more likely to say that it is very important not to evade taxes. Patriotism is as powerful an influence in increasing - expressed! - tax compliance as not being self-employed or being a Protestant (Catholics are less fastidious about paying tax).
There are three implications here.
First, Boris might be right to call the 50p tax “an assault on London.” Londoners are, I suspect, less patriotic than the rest of us: it’s hard to love your country if you live in such a dump. So they are more likely to run away from higher taxes.
Second, if a government wants to get people to pay tax, it should think about ways of making us love our country more. Edmund Burke pointed out the best way to do this; “to make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely” (par 130 here).
Thirdly, there’s a slight embarrassment here for the conventional Left. Parts of it have traditionally been uncomfortable with patriotism, partly for decent reasons. However, this might be one force for achieving a Leftist aim of getting the rich to pay more tax.

Comments

[Marcus Hunt]

Are you really predicating an argument on a survey that says Korea and Russia are not patriotic?

I have just run that by a Russian and a Korean and they were more than a little perplexed.

I have no experience of Korea and much of Russia. There are many times when anecdotal evidence lets one down but I think we can safely assume that Russia is as partiotic as the next country.

Certainly, it seems to be stretching it a bit to base an argument on this. Perhaps you could elaborate on how the survey you cite defines and measures patriotism and whether there really is any correlation here?

[ortega]

There is something disturbing when somebody tries to give you good reasons to do something that you are obliged to anyway. Maybe this condescension comes from lack of authority.

[Morten]

Not sure I understand what you mean with 'The causality here, though, might run either way.' It sounds like you imply that there is a causality. If so, would be interesting to know how you came to that conclusion.

Thanks for a great blog!

[Recusant]

But of course a huge proportion of the high earners in London are not British - 70% for UBS's front office staff in London, and they are not unusual - but they are all paying tax on their UK earnings. So I don't think that patriotism for Britain has a whole lot to do with it.

[Diogenes]

Then surely, as I guess we already knew, patriotism = suicidal stupidity?

[Teejy]

Nice, there is nothing wrong with the taxes in my opinion.

[Mr Leatherhead]

Your premise seems highly cynical to me. How do we get everyone to tolerate higher taxes? Just have New Labour indulge in some flag waving? Organise a Celebrity National Anthem Composer, competition? Get the Queen to do more YouTube videos? Send our troops to fight a war they can win (unlike Iraq)?

All so they can pay even higher taxes??

[dearieme]

Forgoing the payment of tax legally is surely not unpatriotic?

(P.S. Not "foregoing" as in your Premium Bond column. Tut, tut!)

[roym]

hey London isnt a dump!

[Rob Spear]

Along with patriotism, it is also necessary to believe that the organization you are paying taxes to is on balance good for the country you love, and not just a weasel-pack.