There are a few oil rich countries where the citizens don’t pay tax. In some places, the tax is as low as 5% and the sky isn’t falling over.
But to most of us, we pay so much in form of taxes
1. To keep lazy ass MPigs in office
2. To support a police force that mainly serves the interests of the political class.
Would it not be doing ourselves a great service if we revolted against this form of tyranny.
I see politicians to be no different from pastors; each of them earning money off the sweat of others. Maybe if we did away with such institutions, everyone would contribute to nation building.
Call me a dreamer, an anarchist or whatever you will, but I think in the end you will agree we have encouraged tyranny it now looks like things can’t be done differently.
Random thoughts 
Right there with you!
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It is a tyranny
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I like paying taxes and seeing the vital services they bring to the community. I know there is a lot of waste and often corruption, but a state with half decent support systems brings much more flexibility and freedom to the population. Maybe if I was in a higher tax bracket and had a more extravagant lifestyle I’d feel differently.
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Do this services depend on having a MP?
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I think it depends on accountable and electable officials at some point in the process. What are the alternatives?
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Having no representatives as a start. Everyone should work towards creating wealth not living off others labour. Tax capital gains. Tax luxurious goods. Reduce military spending.
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Donald Trump just put you on his, ‘Don’t Let This Guy Into The States” list with that remark.
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It’s ok
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How would that work from an organisational point of view? People need to be paid to work full time on such complex tasks.
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How do you think pastors have continued to stay in business? By convincing people they need intermediaries. Politicians have convinced us we need them to run our affairs we think it is not possible without them. The question to ask is what is it that is complex that makes us pay for their upkeep and entertainment?
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I know I’m more than 3 years late on his one – blame WP for placing the post under “MORE IN RANDOM THOUGHTS”. Politicians don’t run the country, that’s the task of the civil service, which should act independently of the legislative arm of government. I strongly oppose direct democracy, because none of us have the time and resources to properly consider legislative changes. It’s better to have a small group of people who can devote all their time to this process.
Here in NZ, after a bill is introduced to parliament, it is referred to a select committee where anyone and any organisation can make written and/or oral submissions. At the end of the submission process, the committee can make recommendations on what changes should be made to the bill. Just recently, a select committee returned a bill back to the full parliament after spending 18 months considering 60,000 written submissions and several thousand oral submissions. Can you imagine how the average income earner could ever find the time to consider even a fraction of the information presented?
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Barry that’s a good point you make against direct democracy. I agree it makes good sense to have a committee devote their time to this process. However, from my experience, our parliamentary committees are useless. We are generally better off without them.
Maybe if legislation was written in simple enough language, 60k submissions may not be necessary.
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I think it’s important that we have the opportunity to make submissions on proposed legislation. Submissions can be in support of a bill, to oppose a bill or to press fro changes. No matter what the expertise of those who draft laws, they will not be able to consider every possible set of circumstances.
When you consider the number of written submissions compared to our total population, there was 1 submission for every 78 people, or 1 submission for every 50 eligible voter. It’s called participatory democracy.
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That’s very representative.
It is hardly that a bill would be passed that doesn’t represent the feeling or view of the citizens.
Our public participation laws are week and most institutions are only concerned with ticking boxes
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I play a game. I like to think that my taxes contribute to education, healthcare, and garbage collection. When this services get progressively eroded and my taxes increase, I suspect the priorities of governement is no longer the people it serves, but somebody else’s. 😉
I know, it’s a simple gauge, straight out of lalaland, but I think it has some merit…
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I do think it has some merit. If you can’t see what your tax money is doing where you expect to see, it may just not be doing anything
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I have low expectations. If there’s education, healthcare and a rubbish collection, I at least know the money’s going somewhere. If things got too awful I guess I’d consider joining the politicians, or at least I’d feel I couldn’t complain until I got involved. If things aren’t working we have to get in there and make a difference (thankfully I haven’t had to test that theory personally yet, I can’t think of anything I’d less like to do).
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Bookmarked for tomorrow. Read a few of the comments. They are mostly positive
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I apologise for posting a video as a comment OM, which I know is not good form, though you raise a very complex issue and Chris Hedges speaks most eloquently on the matter. This video is a synopsis of his book Death of the Liberal Class.
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My friend, a video, a photo or even a smiley is more than enough.
Hope you have fruits bought for the holiday season
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I’m the one who moans about vids. You’re safe on other blogs 🙂
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Eek! Safe and moans 😀
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That’s sort of true Kate, although you did once have a go at me for posting a video comment on my own fucking blog! All is forgiven, naturally. 🙂
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I probably said it was too long and boring, and I prefer reading. Or something like that 🙂
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That is something I would say about blog posts. I complain about long posts but still read them
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Thanks for the supportive words Kate! It was a short Bill Hicks clip in which he was taking the piss out of Americans for not reading books funnily enough – or not funnily enough, so it appears. 😉
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But it’s always been done that way. Tradition.
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And it is tradition that we must challenge all the time we want progress
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Violet made a valid point about taxes. We do need them to run a just and fair society in everyone’s best interests. It’s just that we have the first part, taxes, but not the second part. And homo sapiens is the cleverest species on the planet? Yeah. Right.
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Yeah, we are the cleverest. Can’t you see we have built nuclear weapons to decimate ourselves several times over.
What % would you think should be paid as tax?
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Yes. It’s smart that isn’t it? We spray poisons on our food too. That’s another clever move.
We’ve got two systems here, one has allowances and a progressive rate, the other is a flat rate 20% tax. It’s for the rich people. I think a flat percentage is very difficult. It hurts poor people. I was on 40% at one point in the UK, but, I was earning good money.
It’s not the tax rate that’s the issue, it’s the expenditure.
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I pay 30% tax. Everything else I use attracts VAT. The government is large and inefficient. They use this money for useless travel, conferences in expensive hotels. And a list of things I am too lazy to mention. The politicians who do nothing to improve the economy increase their salaries at will. The infrastructure is in a sorry state. It would take a lot of convincing that I should pay that much in tax, or any amount other than for social security
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I believe every tax payer should be able to select where a portion of their tax dollars go. Naturally, this can’t 100%. Education/health/defence/roads etc require money and that should be automatically earmarked. However, perhaps 50 cents in every dollar should be free for the tax payer to select where he/she wants that money to go. In more ways than one, this would be direct representation, with no need for a “representative.”
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That’s an interesting concept John. So, let’s look at education, for example. Should my taxes go to fund other people’s children? How about a contribution to schooling and free university education, for example? And, many people DON’T want to pay for defence when it isn’t defence. Roads? New roads? Ripping out the environment? It’s not so easy.
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That’s why it can’t be 100%. Perhaps even 50% is too ambitious, although i don’t really think so.
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Nairobi national park is under threat of a proposed railway line. I don’t think we need to destroy the environment just to create roads.
Defense budget; I would cut it by 3/4. If not entirely.
We have community schools. They are run by parents whose children are in school.
If we are going to still pay an arm and a leg for poor treatment at govt hospitals, why should I be taxed?
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I believe direct taxation (PAYE) is a crime against humanity.
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So what would you suggest instead?
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This is like asking what would you put in place of Christianity?
Why must there be anything ”instead”of ?
We already have taxation on goods.
Why is there need for any other form of taxation?
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No it’s not.
Because there aint enough fucking money without it. I can give you a breakdown of how taxation *used to* work in the UK.
Remember. Taxation goes into a government pot and gets stirred around. It funds a lot of things.
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One of the largest expenditures is ”national defense”.
An across the board increase on all manufactured goods would provide the necessary income.
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And it is secret.
Our office of the president takes almost as much as education
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Oh, and I forgot to add, that ironically the first income tax was levied to pay for weapons!
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That is what the Greeks did, the Romans too and it was to fund the war machine
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They can tax capital gains.
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Something we both agree on
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Get wealthy, then move to the U.S. The rich here have so many loopholes for getting out of paying taxes it’ll make your head spin. Oh, and if you’re poor, you pay taxes that help the rich. Someone has to pay for the billions in loans guys like Trump default on when they declare bankruptcy.
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I think almost everywhere, the rich easily evade paying tax. The poor have no choice
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Too true. Though, here, they’ve got it refined to a fine art. It’d be beautiful to watch if it weren’t so sad.
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It is sad. The worst is we think it is not possible to change it
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I agree with you 99.9% of the time, maka. But you are veering off into loony toons libertarian fantasy here. You are sounding like a Tea Party Trump voter here, to be honest.
Not disagreeing at all bout tyranny and oppression and funding the war machine. But I think it is fantasy to believe that if we “got rid of the government” things would just work swimmingly. Nope. The local headman or witch doctor would still gin up wars and attacks.
Nor am I that enamored of your concept of village level politics and education. Maybe if one lives in a small village, but in cities I want public education. Do you really think that everyone just educating their own kids is a simple solution? Who has the time and knowledge? I’m not sure I want to go back to subsistence farming and village clan life.
Here’s a libertarian solution to a huge mine poisoning the neighborhood. It’s only too bad the big bad government swooped in an punished this free thinking and heroic job creator.
http://fairandunbalanced.com/blog1.php/2015/12/17/letting-ill-enough-alone
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Hi Brian,
I agree my solution is too simplistic and in a bigger sense impractical.
I know, and agree that even if we abolished government, at some point some leader may still come up. What I insist though is we may have to reevaluate what so called representatives of the people are doing, whether so many of them are needed, whether it can be a part time engagement and who are elected or appointed to be the representatives of the people. Are we to elect those who can buy the most votes or those who have excelled in some field or so on? These are in my view some of the questions we must deal with to ensure a government for the people really lives to that ideal.
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