Little Maxi Is A Taxpayer.

Dog tax, a must in Austria.

There you have it. A dog tax, going up in increments depending how wide you open your heart to the canine fraternity. Why dogs I wonder. So far Miss Mausi and her feral brethren have gone under the tax radar and are living tax free. Nice for us.

Having been a dog owner for less than a month I have yet to see what advantages the canines have over cats in terms of getting a return on their taxes....maybe I have not yet discovered public dog baths, dogs only parks, dogs administrators for speedy resolution of barking fines or a yearly bag of luxury food shipped to the canine tax payer.

So far the tax is minimal compared to humans but what a nice little earner for the government. There must be close to a million dogs kept in Austria and thus a nice revenue stream for the public coffers. Gosh, makes me wonder why they haven't tapped the more lucrative feline world because it was mentioned on the trusty internet that there are 2 million cats in Austrian households. A real gold mine standing idle...

Us dog people ( doesn't that sound nice! ) or should I rather say pet people tend to go a bit overboard when it comes to outfitting, feeding, cosseting and loving our lot. Spending money on a cat or dog toy isn't even thought twice about despite the toy often only being played with once! A small yearly dog tax will not even register on most peoples radar.

 Food, can't really call it pet food because gosh darn it, the price of it must surely mean that it includes caviar and champagne. If you haven't had a chance, go check out a pet store and look at all the various meals on offer. Some of the cat food cost several euros per meal...imagine that when free fodder is running riot outside and under floorboards. No, in case you are wondering, we don't spend anywhere near that much on Missy or now Mister. But it goes to show that whoever gazetted these dog taxes is very cunning and clever indeed... keeping the tax very low thus not making it worth a person's while to oppose it, while all the time minting several millions of easy money, year in and year out...

Biggi