Hypnotax

Tax is paid grudgingly but we benefit from public services. Heartrending advertising of starving children or old people dying of hypothermia might induce donations, and playing on crime phobia or showing Orwellian propaganda films might yield more but it won't be enough.

As well as dubiously effective charity-like methods, a more successful way already exists. It's fairly easy to get people to give money to religious organisations either then and there, feeling the subtle peer pressure of the rest of the congregation, being lulled into compliance by collective activity or rousing songs, as direct debits donations to televangelists.

This seems to be a form of hypnosis, maybe circumvented by leaving one's wallet at home, but that won't work if they come for you through the telly.

This suggests another less painful way to get the dosh. Just as party political broadcasts appeared simultaneously on all channels, i propose a Hypnotoad-style broadcast, currently naturally illegally, hypnotise viewers into donating "voluntarily" to the government. At peak viewing time every evening, an insidiously fascinating audiovisual sequence lulls people into a relaxed and easily suggestible state and an easy means of donation is provided by the press of a single button on the remote transmitting bank or credit card details to the government. To ensure consent, the television cannot be watched without agreeing to relevant terms of service and entering the appropriate details on being turned on or taken off standby.

Potential problems:

- Hypnosis may not actually exist, but maybe people need only believe in it for this to work.

- Telehypnosis would have to be legalised. Those who can't pay might becoming expensive to the state when they become homeless or driven to crime. This can be addressed by implanting powerful suggestions of unpaid menial work on a cheap or free television service replaced by a premium channel with a better quality of hypnotic suggestion. The poor simply feel an irresistible urge to go and hoover the police station or clean the toilets at the local prison, thereby saving the costs beyond wages of employment.

The question of what could be so powerfully hypnotic is left as an exercise for the reader. Televangelism and shopping channels suggest this may not be so hard to achieve than might at first be thought.