Lastly it matters to what extent it really is ‘just a game’. In nature we can regard animals hunting for prey as playing a ‘game of catch’, but it is obvious that both players in that case only care about winning and not about playing. If other factors come into play, such as public respect, money and life or death, then it might no longer be a ‘pure’ game. Whit respect to the Counter Strike example, I imagine that there maybe was the ulterior motive of improving the ranking and thus gaining a higher respect among the playing peers.

I admit, I never mentioned anything about a ‘pure’ game in the original pondering. Your counterexample clearly demonstrated the need for a more precise argument. As with most arguments, the devil is in the details and if you look close enough, every subject with a smooth appearance eventually turns out to have its share of dimples.

And I have to agree, to a certain degree. For example, a couple of years back we played Counter-Strike fairly seriously. We weren’t the best, but we weren’t bad either. But whenever we lost, the mood was ruined. If we played a match in which the team just couldn’t come together, or we just knew the enemy was stronger, most of the fun went out of playing.

Sure, we played a few games that we only barely lost and were quite happy with the result, but they were outweighed by the amount of games that we lost and were just not fun to play. Perhaps this problem can be attributed to a bad group dynamic, but even at times when we were sticking together, losing naturally felt worse then winning the game and getting the points registered in the league.

In certain situations, winning certainly isn’t everything and participating is much more fun. But I can also think of a few examples, like the one above, where the game has gotten to a level of seriousness which requires you to win to get the most out of the game. If you get the maximum satisfaction out of participating and not winning, then what’s the use of winning anyway? Winning tells you that you are better then your opponent (when skill is involved, obviously not the luck you described in your post). And although losing brings you back to Earth (I’m not saying you have to win 100% of the time), I do think that - in certain situations - it’s better to win than to lose

btw; the game is called ‘Settlers of Catan’ in English.

Winners compare their achievements with their goals, while losers compare their achievements with those of other people.

My idea is not a concrete suggestion that can readily be implemented by the first government who is receptive to my thesis, but is it more of a philisophical discussion on what makes people happy and unhappy in the particular context of dealing with money. Once we agree on those points, we can start thinking about ways to improve the system such that people ’suffer’ less from taxation and dealing with income and household finances in general. In that context a lot of additional argument have to be considered such as practical feasibility, privacy, flexibility and freedom for people to make their own choices (and mistakes).

The original text included a small phrase that you might have overlooked or did read that much into, which is the condition “as long as they are not aware of it”. In general, people do not try to evade VAT (Dutch: BTW), because they are completely used to paying the prices they see listed and they are not concious of the fact that the product actually costs less, but the government is taking their cut of every deal made between two parties. [ That makes me wonder: does VAT technically also apply to ransom sums ] My proposition is that we would be better off if taxation in general is not noticed. People should never get to see or know their gross income, but rather receive an ‘allowance’ from the government, that they are completely free to spend however they wish, because their rent, obligatory insurances and all other periodic bills have aleady been paid for. Once again, an actual implementation of this idea is not readily accomplished. The biggest question is how to deal with freedom of choice, for instance how would people choose or switch their health insurance provider? The government could assign a default cheapest insurance agency that only covers the bare legal minimum, but that would probably not be allowed on grounds of anti-competitiveness. Maybe at 18 or whenever you are no longer covered by a parent, you are obligated to choose an insurance agency or the type of insurance you prefer or else something is assigned more or less at random. However the details of the system works, it would be vital that no absolute amounts appear. When comparing choices, people should only be shown the difference it makes in their amount of ‘allowance’, but not how much of their (unknown) gross income goes to health insurance. It is a meaningless number to them, that only makes them feel like they are being pillaged, while in reality they never had any right to it (that is; if you support the idea of obligatory health insurance in the first place). That is the essence of the idea I put forward.

I would personally prefer to have all mandatory taxes subtracted from my salary instead of the annual round-up. I think it would ease psychological effects as you mentioned in your post.

I was having thoughts regarding a similar subject a while ago. The Netherlands has a progressive tax rate. Persons with a higher income pay relatively more tax. But that’s not the end of it, they also pay more for their children to go to school. Their kids don’t receive additional college funds, and no additional funds when renting a house or health care. So it’s more like a double progressive tax system.

My initial thought was to steepen the progessive tax rate, at the same time eliminating additional tax benefits. The sum of tax payed/received would be the same for everyone while the complexity of taxes would reduce significantly. Seemed like a win-win situation.

A teacher told my brother -who studies international business and management- the reason why she believes this method is not applied. Though people would pay the same amount of tax in the end, the actual salary payed is less. This would stimulate people to evade taxes. The higher the tax rate the more attractive to evade it.

So the solution to the psychologic stress you wanted to eliminate might not be applied due to another psychological factor.

I double a lot people would evade taxes when the rate goes up though, some compomises could be made for job sectors with a high risk for tax evation (household cleaning, construction, etc).

If I were to get a job right now I would not know the amount of salary I could spent because I don’t know how much taxes I would have to pay. I think we would be better off with your proposal.