No one said it better than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization."

Taken from the article Palin's Kind of Patriotism by Thomas L. Friedman.

And how true! Which brings to mind something I have always thought funny about the Malaysian government and people.

The government refuses to be more accountable for each Ringgit it spends and therefore is unable to raise taxes and gains much more ground in popularity when it reduces them as they have been doing in the last couple of years and will continue to do so in the next couple of years.

The people tries at all accounts to reduce or even avoid paying taxes altogether and yet these same persons expect the government to provide them with an adequate police force, better public universities and hospitals, improvement in local schools and other public amenities (public transport for instance). The list still includes research, healthcare, army etc.

I hope that one day, we may have a reasonable responsible and accountable government who is able to show the citizens that every hard earned tax Ringgit is put to good use.

And that one day, citizens will realise that, while paying taxes is no fun, it pays for all of the above and in return we get to live, work and play in a civilised environment.