AIBU to question people claiming they would happily pay more tax?

A road is a bit more than a flat piece of straight land you know, there's quite a few layers of material needed to make a road and a lot of work. You claimed private roads are better maintained but still haven't provided a source and shrugged off my experience of badly maintained private roads. And who is paying 60% taxes? No one. And taxes pay for a hell of a lot more than roads. How about police? Would you like to have to pay privately for protection? Fire insurance so you get a chance of firefighters coming if your house catches fire? But alas your neighbours don't have fire insurance so your house gets damaged anyway when theirs catches fire.

If it’s all there post a link. It isn’t theft.

Again. Think about it. What's a road? A flat piece of straight land. Why do you need a wasteful government to forcefully extract taxation to pay for it.

Why is 60% taxes on successful hard workers needed to pay for a road

So you have no source for your claim and you don't care that private roads don't work for everyone. Lovely.

If you're not prepared to pay taxes you cannot expect to have the nhs or benefits. The taxes are far less than those things would cost you annually

I guess what I mean is there are three answers to the question "would you be happy to pay more tax?"... a) yes and I don't care where it goes, b) yes under certain stipulations, and c) no not ever. When people say they would be happy to pay more, they are saying they are part of group b. I know of not one single person who is really group a, and of course many are group c. The people in group b would in principle be happy to pay more under certain circumstances. They've not been met and nothing has convinced then it would be a smart thing to do. It doesn't mean their claim is dishonest.

Yes it absolutely is and I wasn't arguing for everybody only having to fund things that they agree with at all. I pay the tax I am required to pay and have no issue with that, even though much of it is used for things I might not fully support, because as you say, that's how society and democracy works.

My point was that the question of paying more was far more complex, and the same rules and expectations are unlikely to apply. This is basically how charitable giving works... people pick causes they support. Voluntary giving to an unspecified 'cause' feels pretty unlikely, by anybody, and that's ultimately what the OP is asking about. And that's quite aside from the conversation around value for money from government generally. Tax paying is still a transaction and all transactions have a value assessment in there somewhere, i.e. the payer has an opinion about whether what they are paying for is good value. In the case of normal taxation, the choice not to complete the transaction requires the payers to elect another government. For voluntary additional giving, the expectation of seeing some kind of value must surely be higher, because that is what drives the action. There are quite a lot of behavioural barriers to voluntary giving, even for people who in principle would support it.

It is theft. Look it up yourself. It's all there.

Sucks to be them I guess

Taxes on lower incomes are obviously lower, so they can afford to pay their taxes to pay for the roads but there's a good chance they can't afford to pay fees every time they drive.

Source for that data? My parents used to live in an area where the roads were unadopted and they were in absolutely terrible condition.

Tax isn’t theft. Where’s the data you referenced?

I'm on your side

Ah, got it!

That is fine - if it’s pointless then nobody needs to do anyway

I think they’re quoting the usual response on why no more can be paid.

Not sure who you are quoting but if that’s the case then there’s not much point in getting into it!

"but it won't have any impact"

Yes but it’s virtue signalling at its finest. If they wanted to do it, they would just quietly do it. It fools nobody.

Why on earth would anyone want to pay more tax? The government pays billions a year in interest on the money it has borrowed. Any extra taxes it raises sure won't be going on improving services for the majority.

Anyone saying they are happy to pay more are clearly oblivious to the ridiculous amount of waste and mismanagement of taxes by the government.

Instead of paying through taxes (a form of theft) people can pay for things via the voluntary market. Roads can all be easily done privately. We didn't need the government for cars, roads aren't all that difficult. Electronic road pricing is literally a thing.

Can we have a look at that data? Can you link to it? And yes, people can afford to drive because they pay through their taxes. That’s why tax exists so everyone’s money combines so that everyone can access essential services, not just the financial elite.

I find the ‘it’s the NHS or the US healthcare insurance system’ idea really frustrating. European healthcare systems are streets ahead of ours - not least in cancer survival rates, and yet the government refuses to consider proper reform to the funding mentors, and we blunder on with simply dire healthcare. I’m in Scotland where CAMHS has long since ceased to exist and a friend who’s child has attempted suicide on numerous occasions is borrowing from family to fund private treatment because there is just none available on the NHS. It’s outrageous.

They can't afford roads fees, so can they really afford a car and to drive then?

I'm pretty sure all the data shows that private roads are better maintained and have less potholes.

The market price will be set at whatever it is to recover costs.

There's a semicolon at the end of it which breaks the link, should work if you delete that

But that isn't how democracy works? None of us agree entirely with any political party's policies and often there are some that we whole heartedly disagree with. We have to vote for the party that is best fit for us and hope they gain power. If you start to demand that you will only pay more tax if the state spends it on exactly what you want then in reality you simply aren't happy to pay more tax. There will always be something that they are spending money on that you disagree with.