A Pecuniary Thought on Tax

They say tax need not be taxing. This is of course a load of old poo. Whilst in years gone by, you paid your tax for the benefit of less fortunate citizens and then got on with your life, that is no longer enough. Oh No. Zealots of all sorts of persuasions now populate government departments and since there is not a lot for them to do, they have meetings and brainstorms. As a result we will soon have a tax for most human foibles. So now tax is about changing your behaviour. Do you remember voting for this fundamental change of emphasis? I don’t. Take for example congestion charge. As the name implies it is a charge on congestion, a sort of it does what it says on the tin. Too many people want something, which is finite, therefore one could argue that it can be regulated by some free market mechanic. Fair enough, lets have a go. But the congestion charge is not really that. It is a tax aiming to alter behaviour. To do this, you need to offer alternatives so that you can wean people off. But that is also a load of poo, because tax is actually institutionalised theft by government. Marx or Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, I forget who it was, said that all property was theft, well if that is the case governments around the world are all profiting from ill gotten gains. That battle, Marx and all that, was won in the eighties, which is arguably one of the reasons, why we are now in a headless chicken mess and everyone is trying to save the world. It is a classic case of lack of focus. Nothing like a few hundred olive green pointy thingies with CCCP on their side pointing at some tender western backsides. There was a time when paying tax made sense. Like defence and possibly education. In 1798 Prime minister, William Pitt the Younger, announced income tax to fund the Napoleonic wars. This was despite his belief that income tax was repugnant to the customs and manners of the nation. A temporary measure apparently... Anyway, I personally like this definition that Tax is a pecuniary burden laid upon individuals or property to support the government. The reason for this attraction is that I find the very rarely used word PECUNIARY fascinating and elegant. It means, requiring payment of money (Lt pecuniarius). It has a certain demanding quality about it with a hint of menace. The sort of menace you may experience when a letter from the Inland Revenue with YOUR name on it, casually drops through the letter box. I personally think that all bills should be renamed Pecuniars and the term bill given back to William. A bit like changing Bombay to Mumbai or Pecking to Beijing. By the way, next time you go for a Chinese meal do dare to ask for Beijing Duck or ask your supermarket category manager for Mumbai Mix... it comes with Kate Adie accent lessons as instructed by the BBC. Which brings me back to tax in a random sort of way. Did you know that some tax actually costs more to collect than it is actually worth. Much of this stuff is just vindictive, a window dressing of equality camouflaging the great altar of tax waste. If you work in any sizable organisation, you would be familiar with the barrage of emails asking you to make your contribution towards the latest company target to reducing waste fiscal as well as paper. As always, every little helps, to make the board look good and trigger copious amounts of bonuses. So why not do the same with the revenue. A sort of, try something new today approach, to every day politics. Every year a modest 5% target should be set, to reduce wasted resource and only after that has been achieved, governments get the opportunity to put forward a budget with tax raising ramifications. If a chancellor fails to deliver three years running they are off to do some community service a sort of an inhouse ASBO and the next chap has to do it in what is left in the term. That will focus the mind of all concerned. Collective responsibility with booby trap attached to vital organs. I can’t remember who once said. ‘If you get them by the balls their hearts and mind will follow’. It may have been John Edgar Hoover of FBI fame or President Lyndon Baines Johnson's ? My memory fails me again. Either way, tax will be far less taxing if that was how we expected our politicians to perform.

And I leave you with this thought. Tax has been around for a while but here is an idea of what Sarah Brown could re-enact to ensure that her husband is truly listening.

In the 11th century Lady Godiva rode naked through the streets of Coventry in a plea for her husband to reduce taxes. Maybe Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath has at last something to look forward to.

Warning: Do not use this text to argue with you Tax office

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Katherine made me do this!

Katherine made me do this! So here are the rules.Blog only when 12 or more units have been consumed. Blog only to rant. Never blog to inform - it is unlikely that anyone knows less than you do - although many think the opposite. Spelling mistakes are an inevitable fact of life. A bit like casual speeding, it not very elegant but gets you there quickly. No texting style spelling, That counts as major speeding through school zones. I hope you are still paying attention, we are still on the rules bit... it is going to be a long evening this. No blogging unless it is about everyday dull stuff. Why bother otherwise, worthy stuff gets into books, so why compete. Finally blog to break the rules, including the above. Oh one more thing, blogging falls into three major categories, irrelevant digital dust, a rant or propaganda not normally allowed through more regulated media. Diggywiggy -diggywiggy as the name suggests is an amalgam of the lot. So on that note Diggy is the name of my dog. A creature I have come to love and admire very much to my surprise. My surprise was even greater when to my amazement (another form of surprise) I discovered that the very name diggywiggy was already taken as a blog identity. Hence the imaginative alternative of diggywiggydiggywiggy (sans hyphen) a collection of sounds which on a bad day may even pick itself off the cutting floor of an editing suite by the GOONS. Today we discover that it is really easy to obtain a driving licence under the name of Jacqui Smith.
Well what a surprise, someone choosing an anonymous politician to create a potentially criminal home office record. Lets all now rush to get some new and shinny ID cards. 3 for 2 available anywhere on the interweb. Oh well, spare a thought for mr Ken of Londinium. Overnight he has become Ken who? He definitely needs an ID card just so that people can believe him. An Oyster ID even better, but certainly very costly, both in loss of personal freedom and set up costs which will escalate. Now then, I have a much better solution. I am currently training Diggy Wiggy (a bloodhound of some pedigree don't you know) to sniff me out amongst a crowd of myriads. According to hearsay and 101 Dalmatians this method of ID is totally infallible. Way to go. Remember a dog is for ID when all else fails not just for Xmas. Invest in good quality dog food it will pay back when your shinny new ID is taken over by Sergey Roublesofsky from warm Siberia. Simply Food will do nicely whilst you try something new every day after all every little helps. Duffy has just flashed on the TV screen caught by my ever failing peripheral vision which reminds me I must visit Wales the valleys and all that. If you find this train of thought rather disturbing I am getting near to 50 which means things are downhill from here. The word failing will now feature in most of my future medical reports. Which nicely brings me on to a failing government. I saw Mr Brown many years ago, next to another do gooder Scot John Smith. To this day, I have not yet decided who was likely to cause the most damage. Well one passed away without too much collateral side effects. The other sadly got the most influential job in government, running the economy. I often wished the Scot was PM and Mr Colgate run the Treasury things would have been over so much sooner.
Anyway I leave you with this mildly commercial message. This blog has been fuelled by Campo Lindo a Spanish fruit juice of intense colour cherry and a hint of brick and remember Katharine made me do this! Next Blog something on Tax unless Greece retains the European footie cup thingiemigy in which case Diggywiggy and I will by dinning at the Wolesey... yes I know but it is better than eating hats!