Tax

[IBM]

Just reading Ferral's post over here and pulling together a few things that I've been thinking about recently. Regarding Tax.

We do seem to be taxed an insanely high amount, as a nation. When you factor in all the various different forms of tax (income, VAT, road, inheritance etc. etc.) I wonder how much you actually end up paying as a percentage of what you earn.

What does the government do with all this taxation? Where does it all go? Why on earth do taxes keep going up? Is the government under the mistaken impression that there is an infinite amount of money to be made by squeezing every many, woman, and child in this country? Do they not realise that they have to cut back and try to reduce public spending? It's fairly simple maths that if public spending continues to go up, eventually you're going to run out of money.

Can someone explain the whole concept to me. I know Rave will be around to give his perspective, but maybe there's someone who feels capable of defending the whole system.

[MD]

As someone who pays a large amount of tax it really bothers me that we don't as a nation do more things to ensure that its being used right.

I wouldnt have a problem with paying what I pay if I knew that it was being used right and was benefitting people it should in places which deserve it.

What really riles me is the inefficiencies of it all - just yesterday I heard of someone who has two kids, claims to be a single mum and is fleecing the government left right and center. To the point that she gets more in benefits than thos who work 40+ hrs a week.

House, council tax, milk, bread, food the works - she doesn't spend a penny on them - and yet she goes out on the town more than I do.

That winds me up, REALLY winds me up.

[SiM]

How do you propose they cut spending? Of course they can try to make the system more efficient, but that would be very hard, and not very effective. Cut wages. Teachers? Nurses? IMO, we should be increasing their wages. They are hugely undervalued by society.
Wages will always go up each year, just like inflation. Wages go up, we pay more, their costs also increase.
Its true, we do pay a lot of tax, but we do get a lot in return imo. You also need to remember in some cases that taxes are not just there for revenue. Taxes on booze, cigs, cars etc. are there to be disincentive to prevent pollution and health problems.

I agree that the benefits system needs sorting out, but where else can costs be cut?

[shadowmaster]

If you know how to use the system then its sometimes better to be 'poor'.

[Sinizter]

The money will never be used efficiently - so I will stick to trying to legally pay the least amount of tax possible. I feel no further social responsibility or any other bollocks after having multiples of the average income in this country taken off my pay as taxes before I even see it, and a siginificant proportion proportion of what I do see being taken off me afterwards.

There is a whole lot of stuff that can be done pretty much immediately - but no one is going to implement them and no one is going to change anything by complaining about it here. So I'll leave off.

[0iD]

It's not how much we're taxed that make sme angry, like MD, it's what it's spent on.

Less on futile military actions & more on the people who earn the money!

[Ferral]

Not forgetting the insanely high wages that most high up MP's get, we are lining their pockets also. I think that would be a good starting point with reducing taxes. They should have regular day jobs (less hours than the standard working population to be fair) so they have to earn the money and have their job as a MP on a part time type basis.

[DR]

What gets me is - why can't I vote for the party I support, they get my tax allocation as a budget and depending on what they support it get spent on that - then who I vote for has a direct impact.

Anyone who doesn't vote it goes with the party which wins - overall would work out to be a better system?

[Zadock]

Not forgetting the insanely high wages that most high up MP's get, we are lining their pockets also. I think that would be a good starting point with reducing taxes. They should have regular day jobs (less hours than the standard working population to be fair) so they have to earn the money and have their job as a MP on a part time type basis.

Don't forget the wages they pay to various members of their families... what was it? £50k equivalent salary to a someones son whos is an undergrad doing a summer job or something like that?! (forget which MP that was).

Oh and the latest one, MPs have to have a second home in London so quite rightly WE should be paying for their furnishings and 50" plamsa tvs!

[YorkieBen]

Less on futile military actions & more on the people who earn the money!

defence spending is at one of the lowest amounts in the last 50 years and is imo one of the things that needs to be increased (regardless of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) - but that is another topic . Vast amounts have been poured into the NHS without result - the way the money has been spent has been grossly inefficient. Plus the stupid amounts we spend on 'social protection' as well as the amount we pay in interest on the national debt (almost the same as we spend on defence each year) - the major places available for spending cuts are really the big three:

'Social Protection' - £169 billion per year
Health - £111 billion per year
Education - £82 billion per year

Britain's tax burden per person is still on average less than in countries such as France and Germany. It is more than it is in the USA though by a considerable amount, however in America they relatively little social security, public health care etc.

However the cost of living in Britain is very high and that may well make things worse; however I still don't think we have things that bad.

[Stewart]

Not forgetting the insanely high wages that most high up MP's get, we are lining their pockets also. I think that would be a good starting point with reducing taxes. They should have regular day jobs

'Gordon Brown was at the centre of an international incident today when he failed to attend a meeting of the G8 in Helsinki. Mr Brown, who was due to give a speech aimed at quelling the strong opposition to US plans to base new missile defence systems in the Czech Republic and Poland, was instead doing a double shift on the tills at Morrison's in Luton.

Mr Brown was unavailable for comment, but Store Manager Keith Confuzzleface said 'he is sposed to axe if he can have a shift off but he didn't axe me, he axed Traci, but Traci couldn't cover cuz she is having her highlights done today.

A spokesman for Mr Brown assured the assembled world leaders at the conference that he would be giving his speech, as soon as he has got home, had some chips and changed out of his overalls.'

[BEANFro Elite]

I think we as a nation should make a bigger deal about or career MPs who claim such huge sums of money in allowances, perks and benifits.

Housing allowances this lifestyle expenses that.

We should start higher up and work our way down, weed out the corruption in the place that makes the laws themselves: the MPs, they strut around like they're gos or something they think they are above the law and the reason why they get away with it is because no one makes them accountable for anything they do wrong.

Cut the expenses the MPs are allowed by at least 90% then deal with benifit cheats etc. but lets face it, MPs are in a way the biggest benifit cheats, they claim all these expenses and allowances knowing full well they can afford it on their own wages alone which is WELL about the minimum wage.

I think the people in charge need to re-evaluate the importance of our people in the public services, teachers are obviously THE most important people in our country as without them, we'll have no doctors, bankers, politicians, electricians, plumbers and so on.

It also riles me that our taxes are essentially wasted by the million on useless schemes and plans which are only invested in as a smoke screen for bigger more important issues that the government can't be bothered to deal with and not spent on true honest hard working people like teachers, doctors the Police and of course our armed forces does our Government really have THIS much contempt for us?

Huge tax revenue deficit? Blame it on immigration or tax / benifit cheats or something equally as 'trendy'.

If the government was a business, it'd have gone bust a long time ago.

[iranu]

There are 4 ways of spending money - in decreasing order of efficiency:

1) Spending your own money on yourself;
2) Spending your own money on someone else;
3) Spending someone else's money on yourself;
4) Spending someone else's money on other people.

ALL government expenditure falls into no.4.

"You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money."

"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

I think all of that comes from P J O'Rourke but sums it up. Oh and yes I feel exactly the same way.

[TheAnimus]

I remeber been flamed un-fairly for trying to explain my complaint about how tax is extracted.

the problem is you get little say or control with more socalist ideals. Fact of the matter is much of the tax, you would pay even if you had the choice, even those who've had the high level of service awarded by the metropolitan police's finest, wouldn't stop funding it, through fear of how worse it would be etc.

Whats anoying is when you keeping paying more, and seeing no improvement.

PPP been the classic example.

[Koolpc]

Well, we have to pay for the MP's little 'Perks'

Tax in this country is joke! I know we have to pay tax but the amount of taxes is rediculous. We will be taxed on the air we breath next!!

Sometime i wish i was a hermit! lol

[neonplanet40]

This is just another one of them arguments about government. I live in N.Ireland its a bit different because i dont vote of labour etc etc and im moving down to the Republic anyway after univsersirty to teach.

But you put them in government. YOU put them there to achieve the goals you seen as best and yet YOU KEEP them in government even though they have neglected them goals. If you dont like them then why doesnt your nation as a whole get them out? Replace them with another government or form your own lol.

Its easy to just sit her and rant but at the end of the day thats all any of you's are doing and that is doing nothing worth note to the government.

If it was really THAT bad and THAT inconvienient you's would do more.

So yea the tax we pay is crap and the amount politicians get paid is utterly disgusting considering they do dam all. BUT UNTIL the people of the UK stand up and speak out against it as a UNITED front then its not going to change. The fact that it gets worse every year says something.