The argument for funding reparations through general taxation sounds administratively straightforward. The government raises money through taxes, as it does for everything else, and distributes it as reparations. Simple.
The problem emerges when you think about who pays general taxation. Everyone does. Including the descendants of enslaved people who are British citizens.
Britain has several million residents of Caribbean and African heritage. Many of them are descendants of enslaved people. Their taxes go into the same pot as everyone else’s. If reparations are funded from general taxation, those people are contributing to payments sent to Caribbean and African governments on behalf of their own ancestors’ suffering. They would, in effect, be partially paying reparations to themselves, via a government intermediary, having had a slice taken off for administration.
CARICOM is aware of this problem. Some advocates have floated the idea that people of colour should be exempt from any reparations levy. But that solution creates a worse problem, as the next page explains.
