Black Tax: When altruism is not enough...

(originally posted on the 18th of November 2023 as a WhatsApp status)

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I saw Mikel Obi recent confession on black tax and it kind of spur me to pen my heart. For weeks now, I have been thinking on how to pen it down but just got the inspiration to. Sometime around 2015/2016, I had a senior friend who travelled out and for some reason changed his phone number completely including social media. And when I asked, he said so many things that I couldn’t relate with, perhaps because I haven’t been in his shoes. So, I said to myself, there is nothing that will make me change my line of communication. Now, in retrospect, I deeply respect their opinion and choice while I still maintain my philosophy but at a cost.

Fast forward to the period I was doing my Master's, I was having a conversation with a colleague one day and I didn’t know how we got there, but I remember saying I 'need' (as against 'want') to 'send money home’. This statement, for anyone abroad, is always a mix of altruism, obligation, frustration, head/heartache. Home in this sense, most of the time is not even just about your nuclear family, it is about every dealing and all billings. My European colleague interjected in curiosity, why do you have to send money home? I was astonished. I also couldn't relate not until I realised that for them, in most cases, such arrangement rarely exist.

For every group you belong as an African, particularly those from Sub-Saharan Africa, there is someone looking for how to exchange or send money. This is a typical reality that resonates with an average African diaspora. However, when this issue of ‘sending home’ is being discussed, it will be overly simplistic to attribute it all to poverty. A cursory look at the cultural undertone, altruism stands tall and firmly so, evoking an obeisance to the deity called African communality, what the Zulus of South Africa gave a perfect word to depict – “Ubuntu”. Even abroad, where everyone just wants to share every bill up till a cent, there is higher likelihood to see an African take on people's bill regardless of his/her earning power.

If I have a function and invite you to my place, I am taking responsibility for that. I don't need your contribution to welcome you. It is this same spirit for altruism. Just that, black tax is becoming increasingly complex because it blurs the line of altruism. And this is what I tell people, abroad, depending on where you are, basic amenities of life can be a commonplace: food is affordable reasonably, transport and health (barring the United State as is being told). But you know what, you don't know your earning power until after all deductions.

Usually, net is not net. Say for instance, hypothetically, you are earning ￡1000 per month. For a typical African who feel a sense of obligation to the ‘community’ around you, your net after tax is not your disposable income (Yd). So, say you are paying 15% (generous) tax. The Remaining 850 is still not Yd. You pay rent every month. The very moment you can’t afford to pay rent, you become homeless. So, let's say you pay rent (350), which usually takes a chunk of what you earn. I am sure residents in the United Kingdom will come for my head with that 350. Some pay as high as 500 for a studio (simply put, a room). Going by the previous, you are left with 500. For your SIM to still function the next month, you have to pay.

Also in the UK, there are still other taxes like council tax that you pay. You even pay for TV. So, imagine all those deductions, and maybe monthly transport subscription and what goes for food, etc. Usually, you are left with a small change. To be fair to people who just relocated abroad and didn't have a reasonable savings in the first year, they are not imprudent, it's just that they have to learn the rope. Imagine removing all those, and still have a queue of Hey’s and Hi’s there on your WhatsApp and Facebook. Sometimes, it suspends your sanity because quite frankly, you don't want to appear ungraceful. So, you are pressing calculator every month in order to allocate what goes where.

Sometimes, you cut on your own expenses because that's the only option you have got, just to sort out those urgent and emergent bills. But seriously, in all honesty, some of the bills are not frivolous. Apart from, hey I lost my phone, please buy me another one, some are just genuine needs like food, tuition, health, etc. This is the real deal. You don't want to see that someone go hungry or can't pay school fees or sort their health issues when you can’t heal them. You lose sleep for purposes like these. This here, is the boundary between altruism and troubling escapades.

And so, you want to stretch yourself a bit telling yourself next month will be freer. Not until the last week of the month that you will see other requests from people you can’t tell, NO! And on and on, the cycle continues. The sad part is, you now have little people in your life that just want to ask after you. That is the height of it—commoditising humanity. It's deeply concerning when people are trying to figure out their ways and means in places, they are not aboriginal and working their sucks off to be in the system and all they get to see is billing. Not even genuine care and looking out for. Inadvertently, the whole essence of ubuntu philosophy that birth the desire to genuinely care and look after others is defeated if relationship becomes capitalocentric.

Unlike my senior friend, not everyone has learnt to manage the situation properly and by no means am I sanctioning his method as the best. But people are thorned apart between excommunicating billings and keeping relationships. Unfortunately, building quality relationships in the new environment is not a walk in the park considering that cultural differences exist, most distinctively, the polarity between values like individuality and communality that characterises societies as highlighted by Erin Meyer in her phenomenal piece—The Culture map. As social beings, particularly those that belong in the latter society (communality), one yearns for that solace and companionship with others, which would also mean to be there for each other. And so, for those who still deeply feel obliged to help and perhaps keep as many contacts as possible, it is a dilemma—operating a lean budget that sometimes cut into your savings or a function of self-care deprivation and meeting torrents of obligations.

So, what's the solution? Wisdom, they say, is profitable to direct. Setting priorities and sticking to your budget are the non-negotiable. With precarious economic climate and slim safety net for the masses, most especially, in developing and less developed economies, it is inevitable that the rate of dependency increase. The burden of wanton inflation and overall economic shocks lie on the shoulders of a few ‘made’ individuals in the household. They take on the role of government in providing liquidity for the inefficiencies. These individuals, or rather put, their remittances become credible and reliable source of credit for the household.

Meanwhile, despite volatile economic climate, other indicators that directly elevate the welfare of the people hardly adjust. Minimum wage could go years without increase while commodity prices only respond to inflation but averse to coming down when there is a retracement in the market. We can also talk about the epidemics of stagflation in which there is little to no pushbacks to protect the prosperity of the vulnerable within the economy. With all these comes a huge gap in income distribution and welfare which overall increases dependency northward the middle class. This complexity explains the reason why responsibilities are mounting on the providing members of the society.

Bringing it home, imagine that the government that ought to be responsible for the basics of life do its part, remittances will be able to go into investment and development. This is the blurry line for development experts who by their standards still find it difficult to measure with exactitude the impact of remittances on the overall economy despite the significant milestone of recorded remittances surpassing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the current decade. Why? For the simple reason that remittance is the lifeline of the basics of life. But at this rate, what will be the fate of remitters? Will they take the route of severing themselves from the unending obligations, thereby obliterating the culture of corporate responsibility? Or will they be resilient and remain the hope of the common man? Time will tell.