Reconvilier Switzerland Dog Tax or Put Dogs Down! 2,245 People (Many Death Threats!) 280 Dogs = Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars?

In another case of government power gone mad, there is a Reconvilier Switzerland 1904 law that allows their city authorities to have their citizens either pay a “dog tax” or they will put the dogs down. The authorities in the town are claiming they need to raise revenue, and the dog tax is being held up as a way to raise “hundreds of thousands of dollars”. Their math, however, is flawed: the $50 tax for each of the 280 dogs would only yield $14,000. It can only be assumed that the city meant that it cost them that much over the past century of not implementing it, but that assumes such a plan could be successfully run in the city. The town is small, full of only 2,245 people, so the plan is obviously aimed at a minority of people, since there is only roughly one dog per ten people in the city. That small minority is reacting violently however, as the city officials are already reporting death threats. But it’s easy to understand their feelings: someone is basically holding their pet hostage and threatening to kill it unless you pay a $50 ransom.