Ever since two park rangers approached me at an empty public court while I was teaching my own children tennis, I've been thinking about how to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Not just to me. To anybody.
The problem that afternoon wasn't that the rangers were doing their jobs. The problem was information. They had no idea who I was, what I contribute, or whether the two kids I was feeding forehands to were mine. So they had to guess, and their guess involved disrupting a perfectly lovely afternoon.
We can fix this with better data. My proposal is a tax identification system, which follows my Leash Ratio to help you determine how much you should be willing to work. Because here at Financial Samurai, since 2009, we're all about finding solutions to problems so that everyone can benefit.
How My Tax Identification System Would Work
Every citizen receives a tax classification tied to their contribution, the way you already have a Social Security number. To make the classification visible in public spaces, you wear it. A colored cap for casual outings, a colored outer jacket for colder days.
I know how this sounds. My first thought was armbands, and then I remembered why we don't do armbands. So let's be modern about it. A hat is voluntary in the way a lanyard at a conference is voluntary. Nobody's forcing you. You just can't get into the session without it.
Say I'm wearing a gold cap indicating I pay property taxes. The rangers see gold from thirty feet away and keep walking. Say I'm wearing blue, indicating I don't. They approach with a scanner that reads your individualized barcode, because caps are easy to counterfeit and the whole system collapses if anyone can just buy gold on Amazon.
At minimum, the scanner produces a better opening line. “Excuse us for bothering you” instead of “do you have a permit to teach.” That's not nothing. That's the entire difference between a nice Tuesday and a bad one.
And really, how hard would this be? We already carry government-issued ID. We already hand our license to authorities who asks. We're most of the way there. All we're adding is color and apparel if you so choose to identify in public.
Now Make The Tax ID System Backwards – Pay More, Get Less
Here's where my proposal departs from what you're expecting.
The system should reward the people who pay the least.
Think it through. If you pay $60,000 a year in property taxes, you have demonstrated the capacity to pay for things. That's what a tax bill is. It's a receipt proving you had the money.
Public tennis courts exist for people who don't have the money and value convenience. Asking a high-taxpayer to use a public court is like asking someone with a car in the garage to take a seat on a crowded bus. Technically permitted. Socially inefficient.
So the gold cap for property tax payers shouldn't get you deference. It should get you out of the way.
If you pay property taxes, the assumption is you've benefited from economic growth. San Francisco real estate has been in a perpetual frenzy zone since the AI boom started in 2023, which means homeowners have likely built more wealth than renters through no particular effort of their own.
The rational policy response is to nudge those homeowners toward private clubs and private schools, freeing up the public courts and the public classrooms for families who can't or won’t write that check. Meanwhile, perhaps there will be less hate towards homeowners by renters as well.
You pay more, you get less. That's not a bug. That's the point of the whole thing.
San Francisco already has precedent for doing the opposite of what seems logical. We release repeat offenders again and again until something genuinely tragic happens. We permitted government graft for years until we finally said enough on November 7, 2024.
Against that backdrop, reducing the benefits available to taxpayers so that non-taxpayers get priority is barely a policy innovation. It's just the way things are.
Keep It Simple: Gold And Blue
For any of this to work it has to be simple enough to enforce at a glance. So forget granular tax brackets and all the different types of taxes we pay. Two classes.
Homeowners wear gold. Renters, who indirectly pay property taxes, wear blue. Every hat contains a specific barcode that brings up your picture and name on a scanner, just like when you go through a ski turnstile.
Blue renters gets priority on every public court, field, and pool in the city. If a homeowner family is next in line and a blue cap walks up, blue plays first. It's like a Lightning Lane at an amusement park, except instead of paying extra you qualify by paying less.
About 63% of San Franciscans rent. This thing passes on the first ballot as minorities seldom ever get their way. I know because I’ve lived as one since coming to America in 1995 for high school. It’s not so bad as you learn to adapt and survive.
Renters get more court time. Homeowners buy club memberships so they can be treated with dignity again. Everybody wins.
I gave up cable and my sports club membership recently to cut costs as oil prices and interest rates stay elevated. If this proposal passes, it looks like I'm rejoining. Because at the end of the day, I believe it’s important to be consistent with thought and action.
The Part That Isn't Dystopian
In 2025 I sold my previous primary residence and cut my property tax bill by ~$37,000. As a writer with a stay-at-home spouse and two young kids, that relief mattered.
Writers don't make much. As proof, I recently wrote about a 37-year-old New York Times bestselling author whose father still pays for their childcare and housing. She even has a husband and they still can't afford the basics on their own.
I've lived in San Francisco since 2001. Twenty-five years, no incidents. Then I lower my property tax contribution, and within a year I'm being asked to explain who the children next to me belong to.
Probably a coincidence. Maybe not with all the government monitoring technology.
Fight Or Flight Is A Real Response As A Parent
Finally, here’s an important point. If you've never had an encounter with law enforcement, you don't know what your body does. Mine went straight to fight or flight.
My first instinct was to defend, because two little ones were standing behind me and every part of me wanted to put myself between them and whatever this was. At the same time, some other part of my brain was running the arithmetic that a lot of people in this country run automatically, which is that resisting has ended very badly for some folks.
You get better at it. That's the one mercy. The second time is easier than the first, which is why going through a fist fight can be highly beneficial for your nervous system. You only have a split second to act.
So from now on I'll bring photocopies of my children's birth certificates in my tennis bag, next to the spare grips. We've practiced what they say if someone approaches us. Their names. My name. That I'm their dad. We've practiced saying it calmly, and smiling, and being polite even when the other person isn't.
And we've practiced the last one, if worse comes to worst. Hands up. Don't shoot. We mean no harm.
They're six and nine. They thought it was a game. I let them think that. But life comes quick, and the sooner they know it, the better prepared they'll be.
Readers, do you think a tax identification system would make public interactions more civil, or is the whole concept an obvious disaster waiting to happen? If you pay more in taxes, should you get more access to public services, less access, or should the amount you pay have nothing to do with it at all? For those of you with kids, at what age did you start preparing them for how to handle an encounter with police, or have you not had that conversation yet?
Protect The People Who Are Counting On You
That afternoon at the park reminded me that I'm the one standing between my kids and whatever shows up. It's a good feeling right up until you consider what happens if you're not there.
If you have children and a spouse who depends on your income, term life insurance is the cheapest peace of mind you'll ever buy. I locked in a policy before my second child was born and it costs less per month than my old sports club membership, the one I gave up to save money and now might have to rejoin thanks to my own proposed hat system.
Check out Policygenius, where you can compare quotes from top carriers in a few minutes without a salesperson calling you eleven times. Rates go up with age, so the best time to get this done was a year ago. The second best time is today.
And just a friendly reminder for anyone struggling with their summer garden – try using gatorade – it has electrolytes :)
Too expensive
Sam
Over the years we see that you’ve widend the scope/character of the articles you write.
But, for me, this is probably the dumbest thing I can remember you writing/proposing.
I prefer to remain as anonymous. Why identify yourself so the blue hats can take more from the gold hats (on the tennis court or otherwise). We pay for all their “free” stuff already.
Thank you for your kind words Steven. I’m glad this article has stirred the emotion of what is going on in society today. The more you pay, the less you get. You have to determine how much you’re willing to subsidize those who pay less. You have to ask yourself whether the grind and the taxes you pay are worth it or not, and then decide accordingly your actions.
Sam… ( sarcastically ) With ALL of your money –shouldn’t you have your OWN tennis court ? after all ….
Even my billionaire friend with a $60+ million home he’s selling, spanning an entire block, doesn’t even have a tennis court.
Besides, it’s fun to go to the club and socialize.
Do I understand proposal correctly: people who pay more into public system (aka property taxes) will be de-prioritized in using that public system against those who pay lot less or nothing?
I had a similar interaction in the public tennis courts. I was coaching two children who were not mine. Their parents paid me to keep them company after school every day and three days a week we use the public courts, more of a baby-sitter than a nanny, but I digress. I was giving them tips and instruction on their tennis game and stroke. A ranger approached me and told me I can’t coach them and threatened the fine BS. I told them they were my children. Almost on que, they saw this interaction and called me “mama”. It ended there. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Gold hat, blue hat
Who’s the fat cat
Show your wealth
Forget the stealth
Bring back the polls. This was a perfect article for a poll.
At least it was “just” the tennis police. There are evil people in this world and you never know who may pull up to threaten you. This is why I recommend having self defense tools on hand. Could be a concealed carry, or even pepper spray should be fairly effective.
True, here’s a relevant post: Effective Ways To Protect Your Family From Harm’s Way
Great idea, Sam! You should feed this proposal into AI and ask it to generate a movie called “Equalequity” with a companion political platform and marketing campaign with suggested rally chants using small words. You gotta think bigger though….
We all know there is an inverse relationship between wealth and virtue. For example, you are in the upper percentile of global wealth, so your inherent entitled privilege and relatively evil heart blinded you to the real need here. It didn’t let you see past giving public spaces to those with less, and you only considered those who have homes vs. those who rent them. Tut tut – typical.
Had you been more virtuous, you would have seen that those with less deserve to take almost everything from you and anyone else with more. Forget caps with two colors scannable only by government agents.
Instead, governments should embed chips in everyone that constantly broadcast net worth and post it to both the internet and to free Equalequity Pods that the wealthiest will be required to buy for everyone on the planet. You can look up anyone you like and pop over to their place to start taking! By default, Equalequity Pods show the wealth numbers for everyone around you, and if you have less than the closest person, the big light on your Equalequity Pod glows green and theirs turns red.
Get the passwords to their accounts, and start transferring money! Better yet, make restricted access to accounts illegal. Take their money, move into their home(s). Do they have more kids than you? What? Evil. Grab a child or two! Equalequity! Green means Go, go take anything you want from them until your light turns red! Beautiful. Drain their swamps!
The utopian society is an endless grab chain. Contentment is giving up. Don’t be a quitter.
I’m amazed that “Tom” reads your column. He sounds like an angry son of a bitch. He needs to get a job, make lots of money, and then he can spend it however he wants. If “Tom” wants to give all his money to less fortunate people, more power to him. That’s what makes America great.
The sad reality is that we do need to teach our children to put their hands up and ask for mercy.
Profiling is part of a law enforcers job. And even white people should be careful and not just assume they will be Ok.
Better to be safe than sorry.
The tax ID system is clever, as those without or who refuse to pay get more benefits. But eventually, those who pay will stop voting for things that cost them more money and the infrastructure crumbles.
So folks who don’t pay or who keep voting on policies to raise taxes on others while not having to pay more themselves must be careful. Long term, they are only hurting themselves and their families.
So much of the San Francisco government is like an embarrassing set of jokes gone bad. Rampant fraud at the Dept of Building Inspection and so much under Breed I can’t even name them all.
I cracked up laughing reading the fine print of your image caption:
“The park ranger would scan everybody’s hats with a smile to ensure they are who they say they are. If they are not, a $500 first-time fine, then jail plus a $1,000 fine and a record on your tax ID.”
As a 25 year CA property owner in a high cost of living community, I take exception to the notion that property tax payers have less access to public amenities. There were tremendous financial sacrifices made to live in our community. We raised our family of 5 in a 1300 sq ft home and held off renovations until our children were grown. For many years there was nothing extra, no vacations, second hand clothes for the kids and one particularly lean year we qualified for a scholaship for city funded summer camp. The idea that we would be restricted from public amenities due to home ownership would have had a serous impact on our quality of life. Restricted access to playgrounds, the public library, public beaches and pools during school breaks, just due to home ownership? I have no issues with sharing public amenities with anyone, regardless if they live in our community. When our children were young there was no money for country club memberships and to consider public access limited, its hard to fathom how stark those years would have felt.
I cannot imagine how stressful it would be to have defend the right to use public resources. It’s genuinely disheartening to learn that fathers teaching their children the finer points of a game have to defend their right to use public spaces.
Or, how about all public rec areas are free for everyone?! They are PUBLIC rec resources already funded by tax dollars. If court time is a problem, just have a simple online sign up that is FREE. Why do we have to monetize recreation with public resources? Why not charge an admission fee to any public park? Let’s gate off all our parks and put a cashier at the entrance. How about we charge a use fee for calling the Police? “911, what’s your emergency? have your credit card ready” Or how about a fee for each day your kid goes to school? Maybe a use fee for using the sidewalk?
those courts are free. Just not for instructors conducting lessons. Seems reasonable to me. But he ran into cops who made a large assumption and didn’t bother to confirm it.
An Emeryville cop showed up at my aunt’s house looking for me (my local perm address at the time, though I lived in the Richmond). Told her I had committed a road rage incident against an older woman. When I called, he cited my “brown BMW sedan”…but i own a black BMW motorcycle. Didn’t apologize to me, let alone my aunt. Good thing I didn’t walk into the station to clear it up.
That’s what we’re dealing with here.
I already found a loophole. Buy a house, put it in a LLC without your name on it, then rent it. Nice try.
Agree. Or if you want to tap resources in another town or city next door, rent a room over there, cheaper than a club membership perhaps, especially if shared.
I get that this is satire, but I would do the opposite. The people who pay the most should receive the most. The net taxpayers should be first in line. After all, they’re the contributors. The takers would go to the end.
Sam… Wow! I was out of the country jetting my .0001% boss to exotic locations, but I think the bigger question here is should we all be taking financial advice from a known scoff law and potential felon such as yourself! If you’ll skirt the laws and disregard the “spirit of the regulations” by not submitted to the permitting process, what kind of liberties could you be taking with your financial advice?? ♂️
And you say the court was empty… NOBODY waiting to play. Is it possible that you just overlooked the fact that these two rangers were on their “union 10” and looking to play a quick set?
Unfortunately, as with every walk of life, 99% of the population are great people and see the big picture. Then there’s the other 1% who could not even successfully lead a lunch push and should never be given authority over anyone! My brother is a cop and while I’ve seen countless examples of him giving people he contacts the benefit of the doubt (because, you know, he comes from good genes!), I’ve also seen officers he works with go on Cartman-esque power trips (“Respect my authority-I-tah!”). Hope this encounter didn’t taint your view of the people sworn to protect us…
The other example this week was at an In-n-Out burger in Idaho where an off duty officer engaged a mass shooter, even though he was seriously outgunned, making the shooter break away from his rampage. He wasn’t required to put himself in danger like that… he wasn’t on duty, the shooter wasn’t targeting him or his family. He did because he was sworn to serve and protect. As retired military, it’s a 24/7 commitment… and doesn’t end when you hang up the spurs.
This was an unfortunate encounter and glad that you have the platform to call it out and shame these two buffoons, but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. 99% are on our side and will be there when the wolf growls at the door!
Thanks for all you do!
lol. 100% no. This seems like the worst proposal I’ve ever heard. Is this designed only to produce interaction on your blog? As someone who wants less government in all areas, I wholeheartedly disagree. The ruling class as government always is misuses tax money in the extreme. Identifying everyone will only stratify society even more. Just fix the roads and parks and let anyone use them.
But taxes are already being paid and not paid. This idea just helps create more harmony and safety for all involved.
Like our healthcare system. Those who are healthiest pay the most and visit doctors the least so that those who pay the least and are unhealthiest get better, quicker access.
The reward for being healthier is intrinsically beneficial, you increase your chances of living a longer and better-functioning life. To then crowd out limited resources to those who are sickiest is bad policy.
The American spirit is all about helping those who have less.
“The American spirit is all about helping those who have less.”
-No, that’s really not the American Spirit. That’s just been the political zeitgeist since the 1960’s. You can quote me on that.
That incident REALLY got to you. It is unfortunate that you ran into a jerk of a Ranger, but there are jerks everywhere. Your ID system is humorous and I hope was a sarcastic response to your encounter. Maybe you need to go back to Hawaii and Ho’onanea.
By the way, your captcha is out of its mind.
I’m always looking to find solutions for a better America. I’m glad you’ve never had such a random encounter with law enforcement. Some of my friends have to really do pre-mortem planning to keep them and their children safe.
Let’s keep America harmonious!
PS Yes, my captcha comment system is wonky after the upgrade, but all real comments go through. Without the captcha system, I’d get over 500 spam comments a day. It’s overwhelming, like if property tax payers use the public facilities they pay for.
I had a horrendous encounter when I was trying to break up a fight and make peace. The cop did not want to listen and thought I was the aggressor. Not fun being in handcuffs and almost going to jail. Thankfully an intelligent cop showed up. Was I pissed off? Sure. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and smarter.
Yikes, that’s a tough one. And from the cop’s POV, it’s hard to know in that moment as they have to go through fight or flight responses too.
The more people can go through physical and verbal altercations, the better they are at handling future ones with a calm mind and body.
There is no part of this article that doesn’t feel dystopian. Please explain to me why, exactly, any level of government needs to be involved in tennis instruction whatsoever. Is there NOTHING that can be left to the private interactions between citizens, with disputes arbitrated through civil courts? Good god.
Not saying it’s right, but I am assuming they don’t want public courts being used for paid lessons unless they’re taking a cut of said payments along the way.
Hi Sam,
I had a very similar experience a few years ago while hitting with my two young daughters at a public park. Someone reported us, and 5 police cars showed up. Two officers even walked onto the court with their hands near their sidearms until they realized I was simply coaching my own children.
The situation became even more uncomfortable when I was asked to provide identification for my entire family because someone questioned whether both children were actually mine due to differences in their appearance. Once the officers confirmed we were a family, they left and we continued playing.
I later spoke publicly about what happened and raised concerns about racial profiling and the inconsistent enforcement of these coaching rules. After that, I was never bothered again. I am a black man.
Reading your story brought back those memories. It’s frustrating that parents teaching their own children can end up being treated like they’re doing something wrong, while similar activities often go unnoticed. Whatever the intent behind these policies, they should be applied consistently and with common sense.
I’m not sure if a tax ID system would work, as it could easily cause more social disharmony. But maybe that’s also the point where the Gold cappers flee to their private clubs where there is more kindness and acceptance, while the Blue cappers create their own hierarchical system to determine who is king and queen of the courts.
That must have been stressful. I’m sorry to hear about this incident, and I hope your daughters are doing great now and with wonderful lifelong tennis skills to boot!
It’s hard enough being a parent, juggling time with kids and earning money, especially in an expensive city. So if city official can be more supportive, everybody wins long-term as better facilities for families and treatment of others has to create better citizens.
The thing is, we have to be smart about situations. Ultimately, our responsibility is the survival of our children. So best not to resist and live to fight another day if things turn ugly.