We are currently in the process of buying a house and I must admit that there is one aspect of the process which has left me a little bemused. In short, it appears that our role as human beings is to rort the system as much as possible. In connection with this purchase, I have been counselled to:

• register all of my memberships at the address of the property because it is non-metropolitan and will mean that they would attract a discounted rate
• apply for the first-home owners grant (a stamp duty concession for first home buyers) even though we do not comply with the eligibility requirements, putting the property in a different name if necessary
• not declare any holiday rental received in respect of the property for taxation purposes (because we could get away with it, and otherwise it would just render us liable to increased scrutiny by the tax office in the future)
• register our car at the address because it will attract concessions in registration and insurance if it is “garaged” at a non-metropolitan address
• take our time in complying with legislation which would require us to put a safety fence around an outdoor spa on the property - after all who is going to know?

It seems to be universally accepted that we should just take whatever we can get away with. After all, everyone does it and it would be stupid not to. The only thing is, we don’t want to take whatever we can get away with.

I remember a not so recent post (I thought it was by eric, but a quick search didn’t reveal anything) questioning the urge towards “tax minimisation”, because paying taxes is actually a necessary thing for our communities to keep on functioning. I have a lot of sympathy for that position.

My recent experiences suggest that our societies don’t have an expectation that we will comply with the rules, if we can get away with a rort. In fact, these ill-gotten windfalls should be seen as bonuses - regardless of whether the loser is the government, the insurance company or a major organisation.

Do we not have any expectation of decent and law-abiding behaviour, or are these type of rorts simply seen as permissible exceptions to the general rule?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 30th, 2004 at 11:52 am by dan and is filed under random musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.