Oh, I love Caitlin Moran

[Bleh]

and her view on paying tax. It does kind of put it in perspective.

OY, not Ow. I didn't just hurt myself.

LOL at your post Someguy. Swedish people coming to the UK to make money. You are very funny. And welfare-dependant Swedes.....Cute post!

"ATM we are not paying nearly enough to justify setting up a system which gives high-quality childcare to every child whose parents both want to work."

Totally disagree. The UK spend far too much money supporting people who don't work because childcare is too expensive. Make childcare high quality and available to all, and people will work. Makes good financial sense.

She certainly has a track record for bullshitting:

[http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/interview--atrocious-mess-precocious-mind- meet-caitlin-moran-newspaper-columnist-television-presenter-novelist-screenwriter-pop-music-pundit and-typical-teenage-slob-1436595.html]]

"She is trying to live a more sensible life - till the present television series finishes. Last year she was smoking 200 cigarettes a day - now it's down to 40 - and drinking a bottle of vodka. 'I did have a couple of nervous breakdowns, hiding under the bed, scared to leave the house. I was getting smashed and stoned out of my head most evenings, standing on tables, waiting to get shagged."

And she openly stated that opinion columns are bullshit:

"I'm seeing the editor of a Sunday newspaper this afternoon. I know she'll offer me mega-bucks to do an opinion column, but I don't want that. I don't like opinion journalism. Anyway, how can you have 52 opinions a year?"

Fixed link:
meet-caitlin-moran-newspaper-columnist-television-presenter-novelist-screenwriter-pop-music-pundit and-typical-teenage-slob-1436595.html

I don't know much about tax but I imagine she's jolly good company down the pub.

argh: let's try that link again www.independent.co.uk/life-style/interview--atrocious-mess-precocious-mind-meet-caitlin-moran-newspa per-columnist-television-presenter-novelist-screenwriter-pop-music-pundit----and-typical-teenage-slo b-1436595.html

Oh FFS, SomeGuy, she was nineteen when that was written

Working age employment rates in Sweden are 74.2% as against 71.3% in the UK. Barely higher at all. epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php?title=File:Employment_rate(%25).PNG&filetim estamp=20090430100050

That does not to me justify the levels of taxation in Sweden, which are vastly higher than the UK. www.ekonomifakta.se/en/Facts-and-figures/Taxes/Taxes-and-GDP/Tax-as-a-percentage-of-GDP/

Gosh, that article is from 1994!
Do you stand by everything you said at 19?
Don't see the point of linking to that. She sounds tame compared to what I was doing that year and I'm not a bullshitter

On economic value and carers vs company directors. You do realise though that value is relative, even in economic terms? So that the only reason a company director is worth more is because that it how it has become? And if carers stopped caring for free, mostly as they do, actually, their economic value would increase? Even economist apologists must understand the principle of scarcity, no?

I think there's an element of skill and ability involved too. Lots of people can, and do, become carers. Fewer have the ability to run a successful business. So I don't think carers are ever likely to become rarer than successful business people.

And you can't detach the economic worth of a role from the value it creates: a carer generates very little in terms of employment for others or profit. So scarcity might increase the value of a carer, but it can never match the value of someone generating wealth and employment.

So a company director will always justify a higher salary than a carer. Whatever the social worth of their roles.

Yes, I get that: a director produces 10 workers where a carer only reproduces one.

But. What would happen if they stopped? They won't, of course. But would society just let the carees die? Stopping Mothering, for example. What would the cost be then? Arse wiping? Nursing? Bin emptying? I don't doubt your argument that as it stands, more value is produced by a company director. But that is only because the measure is wrong.

But if we don't attach (economic) value to activities that generate money, where does the income to support socially useful activity come from?

But people mother because it's a biological instinct. Money is an artifical construct that has nothing to do with it.

Society can place an arbitrary value on caring, but to what end?

If you went round the world and asked people whether they'd be expected to look after their parents in their old age, on the whole they would say 'yes' (with varying results from country to country), but if you then asked them if they thought the state should pay them, the answer would nearly always be 'no'. Whereas if you asked those same people if they think somebody should be paid for mending their TV or whatever, they'd all say 'yes'. Your family doesn't pay you for looking after them. And neither does the state.

Caring is something people do out of a sense of duty, not for reward. Should their be a reward? Well no, because people see it as their duty to do so. I don't get paid for looking after my children and I wouldn't expect to be.

Obviously it's possible for society to get to the state where people no longer see such a duty, and in that case financial incentives make sense for society, but not to a commercial level.

What about the rest? I don't understand.

The point of capitalism is that motivates people to 'win'. If life is great whether or not you win, nobody would bother being a winner and then life would be shit for everybody.

I'm not sure where Someguy is going with this argument, but Wilf is heading for revolution. I'll join you when the barricades go up but in the meantime I'm going to carry on working, paying tax and inwardly seething about government waste and profligacy.

"How can you have 52 opinions a year?"
I can have 52 an hour, love!

Taxes generated by industry/commerce pay for the caring society that we all (me included) attach so much importance to.

Whatever social/emotional value you attach to caring professions, you need the income generators, with the high financial rewards that come with it, to fund it. And people won't go to work to see profits in the millions generated and then be happy to take home £20k. There's a link between pay and performance in industry, because it's clearly financially measurable.

And as for being a 'winner' or a 'loser' based on your take-home pay: I think that sort of comment says more about the values of the person making it than it does about a well-paid executive who works to support his family, often a considerable personal cost.

I don't know where this myth comes from that the wealthy are so much better off in other European countries - this argument always makes me laugh.

Have a look at the basic income tax rate tables here (and that's not exactly a loony lefty link so can't be accused of bias on that basis). Not a whole heap of difference except for some of the less popular destinations. Romania anyone? Very low income tax rates there. Or I hear Latvia's lovely at this time of year.

Of course Switzerland is always a good deal but they're not that keen on letting Johnny Foreigner in.

It's also not just income tax that needs to be taken into account either. There is a good article here which is a little out of date but it makes the point very eloquently I think: "In fact, the marginal top rate in most countries rises substantially when considering the all-in rate of taxes on income, to 61% in France and Turkey, 62% in Denmark and Sweden, 65% in Japan and 66% in Belgium. The highest all-in rates for taxpayers in the United States fall in the 40?48% range, depending on the State where they are resident."

I find the number of people willing to bleat about high taxes in the UK who have done so little research about how they compare to other EU countries rather embarrassing.