Governments, not all that long ago, suddenly realized that it would be far easier to collect onerous taxes when that cash never flowed into their dirty mitts of workers.
Thus began our golden era of deductions at source.
Once people get their hands on cash, they get attached to it and often toss their sense of right and wrong out the window, as many of us have learned the hard way. Thus began our golden era of deductions at source.
Many monetarily-disadvantaged people (you mean poor people? - Chimples) get amazing deals on their rent simply by putting their name on a list for government subsidized housing.Yet somehow even after getting this magic deal, many still don't manage to pay that affordable amount anyway and get evicted.
After all, they're poor because they're not very good with money.
But being too poor for poor-people housing is highly ironic, a little like being too crazy for the insane asylum.
Yet every weekday courts evict cash-challenged tenants from their shelters simply for failing to place their cash on the barrel-head at the start of the month.
Failure to pay is proof of money woes. Money woes are what makes one in need of subsidized housing. So by rights, administration should immediately re-admit such tenants after kicking them out.
And indeed the government housing people allow many back in, but only after they kiss our taxpayer rent dollars goodbye.
Take, for example the special case of Eugenie Kibambe who has managed to get evicted repeatedly from subsidized housing units over the past four years. She failed to pay her $308 rent (calculated as one quarter of her official monthly income) and as a result was evicted at the Rental Board with debts of $430 (June 2011), $295 (Aug. 2012) $800 (December 2012) and $1510 (Jan 8 2014) and $750 (May 2013)
Some other tenants repeatedly get summoned and repeatedly pay their debts at the hearing, thus avoiding eviction but leading to useless waste of time.
About 90 percent of inmates of subsidized housing opt to have their rent deducted at source.
That 90 percent should be made into 100 percent, by making that payment method mandatory for all.
And indeed the practice of mandatory rent deductions at source might also be considered advisable for the rest of the tenant-landlord world as well.