In thinking it's not "YOUR" tax?

[Dillydaydreaming]

Am I?

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All these threads regarding benefits etc filled with people saying "my tax going to support the feckless blah blah".

Surely the whole point is that it's not YOUR tax - it's what your employer pays to the Govt. I pay tax and have never thought of it as "mine", in fact I rarely consider it as money I ever had, what I am interested in is the net amount left over and can I live on it + play all bills for the month (sometimes that's the scary bit ).
If you earn enough to pay higher tax rate then your take home pay (which, let's be honest is the bit wot matters) is going to be pretty good and certainly good enough for you to stop fretting about the single parent up the road having baby number 8 on benefits. I mean would you really want her life - honestly?

Or am I BU?

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Yes Bluegrass you have made a good point.

Right - off out for the evening to spend done of my hard earned cash.

YANBU. Prefer the term 'public money'

Government is there to serve us as a society, not as individuals, some of whom might complain about all sorts of nonsense to do with their money. And thank the Lord for that.

It is your tax. It is not your money. You have a choice about who to vote for, you have a choice to campaign and speak to your representative. You do not have direct choice to influence how that tax is spent in the short term.

Dilly, surey you notice your council tax leaving your bank account though? I hate Council tax, it is by far our biggest bill.

i don't think bluegrass has a goo dpoint at all.

It is my council tax. It is not my money to spend.

You can choose not to pay tax by not working surely - so it is also a choice whether or not to contribute.

Eh? Some people might choose not to work. I seriously doubt any of them are choosing not to pay tax.

pointydog - Of course people have a right to influence how money is spent on the short term. So I shouldn't complain if my local council wants to waste money imo on a new pfi building or a grant to a dubious group?

Lots of our taxes are spent at a local level you know, not just by national government.

I like paying tax. With it I buy civilisation.

And everyone who buys things pays tax.

Pointy - i'm not saying that it's their motivation! Just that it's an option, so surely choosing to work also means choosing to earn (your) tax and contribute.

Yes, I know lesley, that's why I talked about councillors. I don;t call that short term, that's all. By short term, I mean day to day. Takes ages for a pfi building to get underway. That's why there is time to campaign, lobby, speark to Mp/councillors.

Lesly of course

I don't think people feel they choose whether to pay or not pay tax, no. Not at all.

Ok, I think differently...the rich certainly do. Not that I am amongst them.

Yabu and incorrect - I earn an income and pay various taxes out of that income.

I would complain to my MP but as an immigrant I have taxation without representation

Of course it is MY tax. I earned good money and paid extortionate amounts in tax for many years. My skills are in demand all across the world, so in theory I could choose whether to do to the US (saving about 10% on my income tax bill), Switzerland (saving about 20-25% on my income tax bill) or Russia where income tax is flat at 13% for all. Due to my international family dynamics dh and I preferred to stay here, so I indirectly chose to pay what I pay (or rather paid as I stopped working in my field a few years back.

There are some things I begrudge as having such a high tax does not guarantee either a first class health care (we have private expat insurance to cover this) or secondary school education (4dsc all went private as we have either dreadfully oversubscribed faith schools or poor comprehensives locally).

Despite this I love Britain and love living here, but it is another story.

YABU. If I wasn't in my job, my employer would not be paying that tax on my behalf. Incidentally,my employer only pays it over on my behalf because it makes it easier to collect. It is MY obligation to pay it.

I am happy to pay tax to make sure society works. I am however not convinced that a fair bit of it doesn't get wasted. A few years ago a mate of mine applied to the civil service and got turned down. She then ended up working in a very similar job via an agency. She was once accidentally sent the wrong bit of paper and saw what the agency made. Over the course of a year it was the same as the tax I paid from my City job that year (around 25 grand). This is what an agency was paid for placing her in a job in an organisation to which she had already applied directly. They got all of a HRT tax take for that. That kind of thing makes me livid. It is not how I want the taxes I pay to be spent.

I pay a horrible amount of tax. I don't mind paying tax but I don't think where it goes is well managed at all and that can grate a bit but all governments are pretty shite so its not going to change. Still can sting a bit when you see your payslip though

"There are some things I begrudge as having such a high tax does not guarantee either a first class health care (we have private expat insurance to cover this) or secondary school education (4dsc all went private as we have either dreadfully oversubscribed faith schools or poor comprehensives locally)."

Just to give an example that in the Netherlands, where we could also choose to live the taxes are marginally higher, but there is no need for private education (apart from international schools) and health system is vastly superior to that in the UK...

YANBU. All money is just an exchange token issued by the government, so them claiming some of it for redistribution is morally valid and it's completely unreasonable to complain about. Render unto Caeser etc. Most people (in the UK) doing jobs aren't producing useful material goods or services anyway (see: people working in sales, for example), and would be completely screwed without a fake economic system propping them up- no one would actually pay to be harassed by people in call centres in a real economy. However, most right-wingers don't understand basic economics, so will whine and fuss about being told the truth. They don't like to think about how vulnerable they really are.

Ha! WibblyBibble-very silly name, very sensible post...