One of the widely discussed topics in the African diaspora is the ‘issue’ of black tax. Black tax is roughly defined as the money that the most successful family members of an extended family are expected to pay to their less financially comfortable immediate and extended family members.
In this particular article, I will use the country of my birth (Zimbabwe) on the necessity of black tax. To understand why black tax is important we have to understand why tax is vital to an economy. Taxes are as old as civilisation and exist in all types of governments. Using Zimbabwe as a case study, before colonisation from the British, both the Ndebele and the Shona kingdoms paid tribute to their kings. The kings (the benevolent ones) would then use these tributes to pay the army, which was of paramount importance as the biggest threats were invasions from another kingdom. These tributes would also be used to pay for the things that were never of immediate importance but absolutely necessary. Basically, the Great Zimbabwe would have never been erected without tributes.
In present-day Zimbabwe, taxes still apply in different forms and sizes; however, the tax is never recorded or appreciated as a black tax. Now, before I valiantly defend the black tax, I do appreciate the argument that it inhibits the taxed individual from elevating from one financial bracket to another because, basically, for every golden egg the goose lays, it only keeps the yolk. Looking at black tax with purely transactional eyes, it benefits absolutely nothing to the taxed.
Now, to see the benefit of the black tax, picture two trees, one tree planted in good soil and the other planted in bad soil (I promise I’m not copying Jesus’s parable about the sower). The tree in good soil grows well and obviously fathers plenty of fruit while the small tree only bears one fruit. So biologically, the fruit of the tree is necessary for the survival of the germinating seeds, which will be the next generation of fruits through nutritional support and also in seed dispersal. Returning to our ‘parable of the trees, ’, the tree with plenty of fruit will easily provide nutritional support to its seeds as the burden is easier to manage due to resources being more spread out simultaneously The tree with one fruit will find it difficult to provide the nutritional support and ensure the survival of its lineage.
Coming back to our core subject, the healthy tree resembles the first and second-world countries. Good soil resembles how they have resources to sustain their civilisation without overburdening their fruit (citizens). Sustaining is the provision of health and ability for the majority of its citizens to have the majority of the necessities of life. In the 1st world and 2nd world, the ceiling (top 1 per cent) is extremely high, but so is the floor. There is more provided for those who, for one reason or another, can’t provide for themselves, for example, better health care, food stamps and other provisions. My paramount envy towards the 1st world is employment. Now, you might not have the job you are trained for or desire, but you have an incredible chance to get some sort of employment, and if you can’t, your passport is powerful enough to try another country where you will be received with open arms.
Now, talking about the countries that have the infamous label of ‘third world countries’, Zimbabwe unfortunately carries that tag. The black tax is the lifeline for a considerable amount of Zimbabweans. There are actually generations of black taxpayers. The first generation is those that migrated to the U.K. in the 1990s (our very own pioneer column), the 2000s generations in South Africa then, the 2010s generation of Europe and Australia, and the 2020s care worker generation. So vast has been the numbers of the diaspora that one could argue that the current Zimbabwean dream is to be the relative who’s never there, but their money usually is.
Relating this case study to the tree example in Zimbabwe, due to colonisation and other factors, terms of real resources like education, health care, and employment aren’t bountiful. In addition, the green colour of our passport serves as an iron as it usually results in a red signal on most borders. Due to these and other factors, the fruit has an extra burden to keep the tree alive one family at a time. If we can get more seeds to germinate through our nutritional support for our small tree to get any chance of survival.
