Welcome to Del Monte
Del Monte was a small country🍎🍊🍏
Historically it was a civilisation of little importance. Like many, it enjoyed its time in the metaphorical sun before fading from the pages of history. Leaving behind mere clues as to its demise.
However, it did give rise to the saying ‘comparing apples and oranges’.*
Fruits of labour… and capital
Due to its perfect climate, Del Monte produced an abundance of fruit.
However, intriguingly, only apples and oranges could grow in its soils. No one really knew why.
Apples were easy. If someone put in the graft – planting, managing and harvesting – then you got apples. Some got more than others. Sometimes some people thought they got less than they put in. They looked at others and thought that those others got more than they put in.
But oranges were different.
A prospective orange grower needed a lot of capital to create the right conditions.
Some orange grower would invest in the orange business but would delegate the work to others who would do the planting, managing and harvesting for them. Others would roll up their sleeves and get stuck in themselves. Risk and reward varied for each method.
A fruitful economy… a rotten tax system?
It was a simple economy.
But the tax system? That was anything but.
Apple profits were taxed at 50%. But oranges were taxed at 25%.
Further, if you ran your own farm, profits might be at 10%. This was because it was hard baked into the Del Monte psyche that, not only should apples be taxed more that oranges. But orange growers who rolled up their sleeves should be taxed more lightly than those who delegated the responsibility to others.
Indeed, some apples were taxed slightly less than others. For example, trust fund kids who enjoyed their apples without lifting a finger paid less tax than those planting apple trees in the searing Del Monte heat.
However, the main distinction was that a Del Montean who fed their family from apples paid a higher rate than someone who made a living from oranges.
Rotting from its Prime Fruit?
One day, a scandal emerged.
After publishing his tax returns the leader of Del Monte, the so-called Prime Fruit, was found to mainly live off of his orange based returns.
The Core-dian Newspaper quoted the Apple Trade Union who complained that Apple press cleaners paid a higher effective rate than the big orange venture capitalists. It was unfair.
The newspaper talked about schemes from the olden days where unscrupulous growers would paint their apples orange so they were taxed as oranges. Once upon a time, the Court agreed that, on a literal interpretation, the apples were really oranges.
But now, Courts would laugh them out of court. It had been years since the ‘peel principle’ was introduced and, in substance, the apple was an apple.
The Daily Peelegraph hit back saying that this was ‘comparing apples with oranges’ (and so forth the phrase was coined) and this was wrong. It punished the risk takers.
The Orange Growers Alliance went further saying that the returns on oranges had already been taxed as apple income. (Yes, they’d been sniffing the extra strong marmalade again.)
Of course, anyone theoretically had the choice of whether they made their profits from apples or oranges. However, most people did not have the capital to get involved in the more lightly taxed orange industry.
Some people pointed out that the profits from apples and oranges were different. Apples were received annually, monthly, weekly. But orange profits might be spread over a number of years. Indeed, for some bizarre reason, there wasn’t an allowance for inflation when it came to orange sales.
Aah yes, said another, the rules also say that sales of certain oranges by those resident outside of Del Monte, pay no tax at all.
The sun sets on Del Monte
However, the history books don’t tell us what happened next other than Del Monte faded from the history books.
The sunsetting on a former economic power.
But why?
There are rumours that vital documents went missing in a fire which followed widespread civil unrest as a frustrated population took action after decades of apples and oranges inaction. 🔥
Others wager that ‘to level the playing field’ rates the government of Del Monte equalised tax rates at 50%. The result, it was suggested, we that orange growers moved to another jurisdiction (which didn’t care about apples, oranges or, indeed, taxes at all.) ✈️.
We may never know. 🤷♂️
*This is not true!
If you have any queries about this article on comparing apples with oranges, or other tax matters, then please get in touch.