We pay far to much TAX (UK taxation)

Member Name: jpegington

Product:	UK taxation
Date:	02/05/07 (423 review reads)
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UK TAXATION is an issue that is growing in importance all the time, especially with the current labour government who seems to be raising all tax levels except maybe income tax, sounds a crafty way of increasing taxes to me!

Anyway how fair do I feel that taxes are in the UK? Personally I think that they are rather high, although income tax has not increased for a number of years, I pay just about double the council tax I used to, double the national insurance and do not seem to get any more benefits than I used to. Then take into account that extremely rich people can manage to avoid taxes with all sorts of legal arguments and even our politicians seem to manage to get away with not paying taxes on some levels (i.e. second houses) and it does not seem to be a particularly fair measure at this time.

We talk about good public services and can we expect good service without paying for it. Personally I am all for paying taxes for good services like the NHS and roads, but personally am not happy that private companies seem to make so much money out of part of that money. Take for example the congestion charge in London: As far as I am aware a private company takes £4 out of every £8 that Londoners pay for this service. How is this fair? Surely it would be better for most of this money to be used to improve public transport in London rather than creating profits for a company! I have no problems with them making some money out of the service if it is run correctly, but 50% seems rather high to me.

Then lets look at the national health service. Personally I think they do a good job, but this government has plowed money into it, but this does not seem to have helped or improved the service. WHY? Well I would say that the issue is where the money has been spent. I.e. on a computer system that has never worked, etc etc etc. I expect that if we worked out what was being pumped into the NHS, allowed business men to run the service efficiently, we would get a much better service and would probably not have to pay so much taxes for this. Can we expect good public services without paying for it? Well NO is the obvious answer, but I expect that we could get much better public services for the pound if it was run well and not allowed to have government officials meddling.

The third issue here is do I know where my tax dollars are going?

Exactly I would say NO, but I expect part of my and everyone else taxes is used to pay for the pay increase that politicians allways seem to be asking for and for th recent £10,000 they allowed themselves for electronic communication on top of the postal budget they already have. How is it possible they need an extra £10,000 pounds? Do any of us get emails from our local council? or from our politician?
NO Of course not.

I am not even going to start discussing or writing about the issue of the welfare system! I expect that if we prosecuted and chased up those who are abusing the system we could save £1 billion which could be used elsewhere. Why should individuals who can work be allowed not to? I am not having a go at any individuals who cannot work but rather those who are faking injuries or trying to get something for nothing from my taxes! Much rather it was used to improve public services etc.

Anyway enough of a rant from me. As you can probably tell I do think we are paying to much in tax, partly due to watse of the government and partly due to abuses of the system.

Summary: Pay Less Tax