posted by Philadelphia Eagle
It is interesting to speculate as to whether or not the general public will eventually rebel against not only this new proposal but against high taxes generally.
The British government is very successful in hiding from people the true extent of the total tax take there and there are hidden taxes everywhere you look.
A good place to start might be for retailers to print their till receipts showing the cost of the item without tax, the tax paid and then the total amount due as is done here.
At present the tax you pay in Britain is completely hidden.
Apart from VAT and fuel duty (petrol) there is duty on alcohol and cigarettes there are a few indirect taxes on investments, private pension funds (now there are-they used to be tax free thanks to GB) and bank account interest that are a bit obscure ,
local council taxes are levied by local councils and you get a bill each year, you know exactly what you pay.
Income tax is paye-pay as you earn-for an employee, each month your salary slip shows exactly how much tax and National insurance you pay., self employed pay annually-again you know exactly what you pay-don't know where you get the idea tax is hidden. People aren't daft they know exacrtly how much tax they pay.
In 1997 polls showed people were prepared to pay more i.e. income tax so long as it went on the NHS and education. Indirect taxation is perceived as being unfair whereas income tax where you pay nore if you earn more is fairer. people are pissed off because the NHS
It's unfairness that gets people going. When Maggie T brought in the poll tax there were riots on the streets as people didn't think it fair a family on low income pay the same as a family earning two or three times as much.
It was introduced in Scotland first as a trial which is why the Tories were almost completely wiped out in Scotland and the vote for devolution was so strong-at the time the of the devolution vote Maggie came up to lend her support to the anti-devolution campaign the Scottish papers had her on the front page with the headline "If you've forgotten why you should vote yes here she is". Local councils have never recovered from it as people just stopped paying wholesale and the lost revenue has not been recovered.
I think there is a fundamentally different attitude in the UK-we pay tax we expect the governemnt to provide certain things like "free" education and healthcare. It's worth paying a bit more tax not to become destitite because of medical bills. Most people in this country would not tolerate someone getting better treatment simply because they have more money-it's unfair. I gather from some of the posts that is amajor worry for americans, (Actually when I see posts like that I wonder why Americans accept it). Here we may complain about the NHS but very few disagree with the principle and it's a sentiment that government ignores at it's peril.
It's that kind of issue and the Iraq war that cost Labour so many votes at the last election plus TB being a lying smarmy devious git.
If you have difficulty sleeping
http://www.qck.com/tax-advice.0.html?se ... rcekey=tax
Avctually i've had slight dealing with your IRS you're welcome to them-our equivalent are cuddly in comparison