Tax

[Daniel Quinn]

Yes but individual morals allow millionaires to avoid tax without any compunction.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Isn't it morals and lack of morals. Avoiding tax would be lack of morals, an individuals conscious decision.

You see it in nature all the time. Commonly known as survival of the fittest.

[Daniel Quinn]

So millionaire tax dodging is a sign of Darwinian supremecy

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

If they have the power base or the bribery power to get away with it then yes. Every African country runs on it and the bribes.

[Lindsayt]

There's a big difference between tax avoidance (legal) and tax evasion (illegal).

I would encourage everyone to avoid as much tax as they can.
I cannot condone tax evasion.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

People don't realise that tax is a relatively knew thing. Income Tax came in because of the 1st world war with a promise it would end at the end of it Purchase Tax (the precurser to VAT) was introduced in the 2nd world war with a promise it would end at the end of it

So how did the country survive without it when there was no war? pretty well I think!

I am sorry but tax is legalised theft - full stop. So IMO is completely immoral and only exists because it is reinforced by law and punishment. If tax was voluntary how many of you would pay it?

[Fretless]

Without taxes there wouldn't be any really important things done in the EU - like moving the whole parliament from Brussels to Strasburg and back every month.

Only costs about 200,000,000 euro per year. Come on - we all really want to keep wonderful institutions like this don't we?

[Dingsking]

People don't realise that tax is a relatively knew thing. Income Tax came in because of the 1st world war with a promise it would end at the end of it Purchase Tax (the precurser to VAT) was introduced in the 2nd world war with a promise it would end at the end of it

Ummm, really? (And to be sure, taxation went back well before that to around the time of the third crusade in the 1100's).

from Wiki......

History

Modern era

William Pitt the Younger introduced a progressive income tax in 1798.
The inception date of the modern income tax is typically accepted as 1799,[4] at the suggestion of Dr Beeke, Dean of Bristol.[5] This income tax was introduced into Great Britain by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger in his budget of December 1798, to pay for weapons and equipment for the French Revolutionary War. Pitt's new graduated (progressive) income tax began at a levy of 2 old pence in the pound (1/120) on incomes over £60 (£5,511 as of 2015),[6] and increased up to a maximum of 2 shillings in the pound (10%) on incomes of over £200. Pitt hoped that the new income tax would raise £10 million a year, but actual receipts for 1799 totalled only a little over £6 million.[7]

Pitt's income tax was levied from 1799 to 1802, when it was abolished by Henry Addington during the Peace of Amiens. Addington had taken over as prime minister in 1801, after Pitt's resignation over Catholic Emancipation. The income tax was reintroduced by Addington in 1803 when hostilities with France recommenced, but it was again abolished in 1816, one year after the Battle of Waterloo. Opponents of the tax, who thought it should only be used to finance wars, wanted all records of the tax destroyed along with its repeal. Records were publicly burned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but copies were retained in the basement of the tax court.[8]


Punch cartoon (1907); illustrates the unpopularity amongst Punch readers of a proposed 1907 income tax by the Labour Party in the United Kingdom.
In the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, income tax was reintroduced by Sir Robert Peel by the Income Tax Act 1842. Peel, as a Conservative, had opposed income tax in the 1841 general election, but a growing budget deficit required a new source of funds. The new income tax, based on Addington's model, was imposed on incomes above £150 (£12,320 as of 2015),[6]. Although this measure was initially intended to be temporary, it soon became a fixture of the British taxation system.

A committee was formed in 1851 under Joseph Hume to investigate the matter, but failed to reach a clear recommendation. Despite the vociferous objection, William Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1852, kept the progressive income tax, and extended it to cover the costs of the Crimean War. By the 1860s, the progressive tax had become a grudgingly accepted element of the English fiscal system.[9]

[Lindsayt]

Cneck out the history of UK Government spending as a percentage of GDP here: http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/numbers?units=p and here: http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/past_spending

Over the last 100 years the long term trend has been for it to go up and up and up.

Also, Government spending increased in real terms during the Thatcher years. One could argue that spending should have increased with the massive rise of unemployment between 1979 and 1983, but spending didn't go down when unemployment went down. In purely monetary terms, Thatcher was a Big Government Spending Socialist.

[Daniel Quinn]

Doc. I think you will find taxation saved your life.