Why Do We Pay Taxes?

Ok, so the question isn't really why pay taxes at all; that is obvious. What I mean is, why pay the taxes we have and certainly the level? Consider. Personal tax on income (which includes National Insurance) is routinely a third of 'earnings'. More as you get clobbered higher up the pay scale (unless you dodge). Your employer also has to pitch in an additional 13.8% of your gross pay.

When you buy something with the money you earned and were generously allowed to keep by the goverment, about 16.75% of the price of the goods will most often be tax. If the product is petrol the tax take is 80.1p (on a litre at 132.9p). That's over 60%.

As you can't take it with you when you die, the government helps itself to 40% of anything over £300,000 that you leave. Remembering that when you bought your house, at between £250,001 and £500,000 you had to pay the government 3% of the purchase price (it goes from 1-5% based on price). Then there is all the tax on companies and share dealing; it goes on and on.

Now I don't know about you, but I find, whether I like it or not, I have to buy quite a lot of things. I have to buy petrol to get to work and sometimes, mad fool that I am, I might like to drive somewhere for pleasure. So the ringing of cash till bells may not be creating angels' wings, but it is certainly creating that vast amount of money that the government sprays around.

It may be a vast amount but a) Gordon Brown made it 'not enough' so borrowed a whole mountain more and b) it doesn't seem enough for the things we thought it was for; a decent hospital service, police forces, fire service, bins emptied regularly, roads kept open in winter, armed forces and some people to watch we don't get poisoned or ripped off by the local curry house or the energy company.

What we do get is MP's expenses and Quango's to do what the MP's are paid to do. The Quango's then hire Consultants to do their job and just to make sure, the MP's hire Consultants who tell them to create more Quango's. We get MoD procurement that pays for things we don't then get, or don't work, hosiptals that pay £2400 for £16 worth of drugs and IT systems that don't work. Plus our contributions to pay for the EU and its cock-ups.

What I do understand is that the government has a massive incentive to make sure not many people hold on to their money. Imagine if you could just pass on your wealth to your children unhindered, just how many generations would it take before a significant proportion of the population had enough wealth to be largely independent of government? Enough money that you can escape their clutches if need be. Doesn't bear thinking about if your job is to tell people what to do.

There isn't an argument about 'big government'. It has to stop. No, seriously it has to stop. Government should do very little, tax accordingly and leave us to spend our money creating wealth all round, getting richer by each generation. We should keep our money rather than have it appropriated by governments who then, basically, lose it.

It's The Stupid Economy

If you read the papers (in paper or online) you get bombarded with all sorts of figures about the economy. Slight recovery, manufacturing doing better than expected, double-dip recession on the way, euro going to pot. Are we slowly but steadily getting out of the mess Labour left (with a generous hand from their friends, the bankers), just as The Little Engine That Could? Or are we mired in a self feeding depression from which the sides are too steep?

Well, as even 'Eyebrows' Darling said when he was financial liar in chief after Brown (apparently) gave it up, it is the private sector that is to drag us out of the recession and grow the economy back to strength. Not the public sector then? The sector that absorbed most of the extra money Labour borrowed to give Britain an imaginary 'good time'. No, because the public sector is a drain on an economy, not a useful part.

Some jobs have to be done centrally, by this 'public sector' such as policing, emptying the bins, doctors; you can identify which because the authorities will be loudly shouting about them, as they cut them back. To 'save money.' The jobs you won't hear being cut back will be the drugs outreach workers and the lesbian and gay carnival organisers and the white line monitors and translation services. Local and national bodies will not stop refurbishing their offices or building new ones. Or awarding their 'executives' pay rises.

Then there are the Quango's. Quasi Autonomous Non Governmental Organisations. Unfortunately a bad idea from the Thatcher years, to distance government from unpalatable decisions. If the Quango was responsible for implementing some necessary but much disliked service, then the Ministers could hold up their hands and say 'nothing to do with us'. Except, who gave the Quango the power and who pays for and backs those decisions? Oh, yes.

Quangos like Ofgem to watch energy companies and the Independent Police Complaints Commission are useful bodies of course, if they would actually do their job, which currently they are not. But do you realise that we pay for a Quango called the Potato Council? Do you buy potatoes as a result of their wise words? Or ever looked at their website? What possible reason could there be for a potato council?

No, councils and central government don't need to 'cut back on services', they need to stop wasting money. They need to stop doing things we don't need them to do. Labour may have opened the UK's borders and ignored immigration both illegal and otherwise, but the influx of people who cannot speak English is a real issue. Government services, desperate to spend as much taxpayers money as possible (these people in the main of course are kindred spirits, as they are a drain on society too), employ armies of translators, thus alleviating any need on the part of these 'guests', to learn the language of the country they have chosen to descend on.

If you could not get access to services without knowing the language, or paying for translation yourself, then guess what. Most wouldn't come (particularly if the only outcome of the first -translated- conversations is to establish what level of benefits they will receive). That is a not unreasonable expectation.

And there you have it. An out of control, over-mighty government, bequeathed with a massive debt by the authoritarian regime of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the Laurel and Hardy of politics. It has left us with empty coffers but plenty of people still demanding, with none of them contributing. To grow an economy you need to understand an economy and you have to want to serve the nation and its people, not just inherit the style and swagger of the snake oil salesman.

Cut the waste, maintain the services the people want and pay for. Cut taxes so people can help industry grow by buying its products and get tough on parasites. A major underlying reason we had rioting recently was probably because, deep down, these people realise they may be in the last chance saloon. That their friend and mentor, Tony has gone and the replacement may not always be inclined to be as stupid.