MAL 30:19 MAL30 | Page 38

LEADERSHIP Black Tax: Reason We Work Hard But Remain Poor! By George Mbithi "In an ideal society, the normal understanding should be that a child is not an investment. There should never be any financial ex- pectations on a child. Parents need to arrange their lives such that they have enough to pro- vide for their kids and retire into. There should not be any obli- gation on a child to provide for the parent. It only follows, then, that parents should only have as many children as they can pro- vide for without depleting their own resources for retirement." "According to Urban Dictio- nary, Black Tax is a term used to mean the extra money that black professionals are ex- pected to give every month to support their less fortunate family and extended families. The same dictionary contin- ues to explain that the bur- den of black tax causes finan- cial distress to middle class (black) professionals as they usually have no savings left after having to share their sal- aries with the entire family."