Tax... Am I ignorant?

V4NT0M

V4NT0M

V4NT0M

Soldato
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Land of the Scots
So it's nothing new that we pay lots of taxes in the UK, road tax, fuel tax, TV lisence, VAT etc... Can anyone tell me where all this goes? Other countries seem to do just fine without half the taxes we have...

The only real thing I can see that we have above some others is the NHS. What else does our excessive tax pay for that other countries without so much taxation do not have?

Not so much a gripe but I'd like to be more positive about the tax we pay. Next time I look at the price of something over here Vs abroad I want to think "yes but we have X,Y,Z because of it".
 
We have very high spending on the NHS, Social Services in general and also the military compared to other countries I believe.
 
We spend MORE than the TOTAL income tax intake on Social Services (excluding the NHS)

Something like 60bn a year is spent on the benefits for the chavs alone :/
 
me227 said:
While the Scandinavian countries are more expensive they seem to have more smooth running services, so they're actually getting something for their money. In my experience anyway that seems to be true.
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I agree 100%.

People who moan about "paying too much tax" are also often the ones who complain about public services not being up to scratch. You can't have it both ways.
 
spitzoid said:
People who moan about "paying too much tax" are also often the ones who complain about public services not being up to scratch. You can't have it both ways.
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I dunno about that, people who pay a lot of tax should have a reasonable expectation of getting value for money to be honest. I certainly don't think we do, given that we're paying more tax now than for years/decades yet public services have deterioated if anything.
 
Jokester said:
I dunno about that, people who pay a lot of tax should have a reasonable expectation of getting value for money to be honest. I certainly don't think we do, given that we're paying more tax now than for years/decades yet public services have deterioated if anything.
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Thats the way I feel about it too. The impression I get from visiting other European countries is that their services are a lot better and they're actually getting value for money.

I wouldn't mind paying our current level of tax just as long as we got a service that reflected that price. Just take the train systems for example!
 
Skyfall said:
Can anyone tell me where all this goes? Other countries seem to do just fine without half the taxes we have...
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Take Spain for instance, all health related stuff is free and is paid for by taxes received from petrol yet the petrol price is 30% less than here so why do I have to pay 100 euro a month from my salary and another 120 euro a month to a healthcare insurer :confused:

And there is no road tax in Spain.

I think it has a lot to do with the billions 'rich' countries pay the EU so they can give it all to countries like Spain, Greece etc.
 
spitzoid said:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/index.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP

We are not the worst, check out some of the Scandinavian countries.
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I guess if you use those statistics and compare us with the USA we pay a further 10% of our money to tax, and taking the GDP into account thats £260,000,000,000 ish.... NHS takes an astonishing £100,000,000,000 ish of that.

What do we have to show over the USA for the rest of it?
 
spitzoid said:
I agree 100%.

People who moan about "paying too much tax" are also often the ones who complain about public services not being up to scratch. You can't have it both ways.
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Then perhaps we should switch to a pay for what you use system? I don't use Public Transport but do use a lot of the NHS' services thus would prefer the option of paying less tax direct to the government that will go on public transport but more towards my health care (probably via Health insurance)

Don't know how easy this kind of system would be to set up or maintain but surely it would be fairer than just paying into a big pot?

There would, of course, still need to be a basic tax (such as a reduced Income Tax) to stop the problem of people not wanting to pay for certain essential services!
 
me227 said:
While the Scandinavian countries are more expensive they seem to have more smooth running services, so they're actually getting something for their money. In my experience anyway that seems to be true.
Click to expand...

What do people expect, you under-invest in public services for decades then suddenly everything will be all right when you start putting a bit more money in? Sorry, doesn't work like that.
 
LordSplodge said:
Then perhaps we should switch to a pay for what you use system? I don't use Public Transport but do use a lot of the NHS' services thus would prefer the option of paying less tax direct to the government that will go on public transport but more towards my health care (probably via Health insurance)
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The result of that would that public transport would become less affordable for the people who did use it - who are often the most vulnerable groups. There are also strong environmental reasons why people should be encouraged to use public transport rather than private cars.

Plus, presumably you would expect better health care in exchange for more of "your" tax going on that? So, people who do use public transport should get worse medical care?

I don't think you've really thought this through and I don't think it's remotely workable. The inevitable result of any sort of taxation is that lots of people pay money for things they don't use - but to a big extent that's the whole point. The person fortunate enough to be healthy and in work subsidises the people made redundant or ill enough to need expensive medical care. The only sensible way to "choose where your money goes" is for the state to simply stop providing some services altogether.

I'm sure that the current government has got into a habit of wasting enormous amounts of money - public spending has increased significantly in the last decade and I'm not convinced we've seen enough benefits for it to be value for money. I also think that there are lots of areas where it would be much better to cut spending - but I don't think "optional taxes" make any sense at all. The only sensible option is to make certain things entirely private.
 
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me227 said:
While the Scandinavian countries are more expensive they seem to have more smooth running services, so they're actually getting something for their money. In my experience anyway that seems to be true.
Click to expand...

Or the Scandinavian countries don't incessantly moan about their public services like we do which give the illusion they are better.
 
On the benefit side of things I've always thought it could be feasible or at least worth looking at the idea of getting as many people working for their benefits as possible. I mean we're paying for them already so why not give them something meaningful to do?
 
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