It is often said that there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. I'd like to add a third certainty--avoiding taxes. We usually pass taxes to raise funds to buy things that we want the government to do. Sometimes, we pass taxes to punish people for behavior we don't like, as are the cases with both taxes on pollution and the proposal to raise taxes on cigarettes by more than a dollar a pack. While we don't always intend to punish people by taxing them, the taxed behavior is always punished and almost always reduced. People do some strange things to avoid paying taxes.

People, not just rich people, take steps to avoid taxes. We tax income and people have less incentive to earn an income. Our tax system double taxes savings, both when we earn it and then again on the interest on the savings. Is it any wonder we have one of the world's lowest savings rates.

At one time, property taxes, both in the South and in France, were based on the number of rooms in the house. Since closets were counted as rooms, people needed a place to store clothing and so we have the armoire.

Years ago, in both Western and Central Europe, property taxes were based in part on the number of windows in a house. The result? Houses that were unhealthy because they were dark and lacked ventilation, as they were built with no windows.

In England, at one time, a large number of the windows in the finer homes were boarded up when property taxes were based on the number of windows.

In area plantation homes, we often see large, glorious walk-through windows. More doors meant higher property taxes.

Long ago, Pasha Mehemet Ali decreed a tax on date palm trees. People responded to avoid the tax. They responded with date palm stumps. The trees were worth more cut down.

In the third century, Rome began taking steps backward. Taxes on commerce led many merchants to stop keeping records. With no records they were not able to judge what worked well and what didn't.

The Duke of Tuscany taxed salt. Bakers stopped using salt in bread. Instead, they came up with Tuscan Bread (if you have a bread machine, using French Bread and Dark Crust settings, add 1 1/8 cups of water, 2 Tbs. of olive oil, 1 Tbs. sugar, 1 ½ tsp. active yeast to 3 cups of bread flour for a medium loaf of Tuscan Bread).

In the January 26th issue of Bayou Business Review, Larry Wall, a spokesman for the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, wrote about the oil and gas "processing tax" that State Senator Foster Campbell has proposed to replace the current oil severance tax. Under Campbell's oil and gas processing tax, any oil coming into Louisiana through pipelines, drilled in Louisiana, or refined in Louisiana, would be subject to his tax. Louisiana has much more oil that we refine than we produce, and Sen. Campbell wants to expand the oil and gas tax base with his proposal.

Campbell thinks the tax will be passed along to out of state consumers. But with many alternatives outside Louisiana, this tax will only be paid by the citizens of Louisiana, though the state will see little of what its citizens pay. While I will not repeat Mr. Wall's excellent analysis of Campbell's proposal, let may just say that pipelines do not have to come through Louisiana, nor does oil have to be refined in Louisiana. Just as with Ali's tax on date palms, we will find only the desolate, chopped-down stump remains of an oil and gas industry in Louisiana.

Death, Taxes and Tax Avoidance are the three certainties. If we kill the golden goose of the oil and gas industry, the trilogy is complete.