Paying taxes is a pleasurable duty [Big BARF!!]

New Scientist (VIA HotAir) ^ | June 14, 2007 | Roxanne Khamsi

[Islander7]

Paying taxes feels good, say researchers.

The surprising discovery, based on brain scans, can also predict which people are most likely to donate cash to charity.

Bill Harbaugh at the University of Oregon in Eugene, US, and colleagues gave 19 female university students $100, and told them some of this money would have to go towards taxes.

---- Snip ---

Harbaugh says that people probably like paying taxes more than they admit. He believes the results of his new study help explain the widespread compliance with tax laws. "We like to complain about it, but based on what we do, we are not as opposed to it as we like to say," Harbaugh says.

[Abathar]

Hehehe, that’s a way of looking at it I didn’t think of...

[El Cid]

Heck - I like to make people feel good about themselves.
I'm willing to step up to the plate, and make the ultimate sacrifice and allow these researchers to pay my taxes - so they can increase the happy feelings in their brain - and I'll just suck it up ... having to take solace in the fact that I gave up this pleasurable activity for someone else's gain...
sigh...

(...any bites yet?)

[GOP_Raider]

Bill Harbaugh at the University of Oregon

Figures.

[crazyhorse691]

Bill Harbaugh, Associate Professor, UO Economics Department.

---

Well, at least he isn’t from the Sociology Department...

[Just another Joe]

GIVE me a hundred dollars and I'll be more than happy to pay taxes on it.

How many more hundreds you got to GIVE me? I'll pay taxes on that too.

[chesley]

This is a classic case of a man educated beyond his intelligence.

[wildwood]

yeah, and that's why i thoroughly enjoy going to the post office to see my tax dollars at work, while i wait in line in the heat (a poorly designed all glass p.o. facing the sun is at fault) for one guy (whose peers are laughing in the back room while 20 people wait in line in the lobby) who says he can't help you figure out how to use the scale in the lobby to weigh your package because if he DID, he might end up losing his job to the scale.

which, admittedly, would be a better public service than this guy.

[andy58-in-nh]

Of course they didn’t mind paying the taxes - they never worked for the money.

[freekitty]

More nuts.

[LantzALot]

Bill Harbaugh at the University of Oregon in Eugene, ...

What else would you expect from a professor from Pew-gene? They take any tack to try to get people to think there's something good about paying taxes.

[Suzy Quzy]

they were GIVEN the money...they did not Earn it....that/s the diff.

[3niner]

...gave 19 female university students $100, and told them some of this money would have to go towards taxes.

The key work here is "gave". People tend to have a different attitude about money that they earn.

[TexasCajun]

http://harbaugh.uoregon.edu/

[TexasCajun]

Let’s see how your subjects brain reacts if you made them work 10 hours @ $10.00/Hr and then tell them that they really worked for you for 2 or 4 hours and have to pay up.

[sentis1]

this is an idiotic survey unles it is saying Republicans are the ones that enjoy giving away their money in taxes then it is a flawed survey. Why? Because Republicans give two to three times as much to charity than Libs do and thats a solid fact. Most liberals give no money to charity.

I love surveys because liberals can say anything they like.

Surveyor
“do you like giving your money away in taxes?”
Liberal
“I love it, I also give away most of the other money I make to charity (lie)”

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Well, New Scientist also reports that climate change is man-made, so whattaya expect?

[Republicus2001]

It’s my understanding the original tax on gasoline to be used for road improvements was truly a favorably accepted tax -

[A_Former_Democrat]

Hey, ok . . . those who feel good about paying taxes can pay mine . . and we’ll all feel better.

[donmeaker]

They are welcome to pay mine. I would forego the pleasure, just for them.

[PatrickF4]

Oh, so the pleasure might not have been from paying the taxes, but from "working for it"? (wink)

What libs will do to make us think that paying taxes is enjoyable! We all get to donate to their causes, by force, so we should feel so much better for it. Baloney.