Taxation - the big squeeze
2009 was the year of the banker - yes I said “banker”! We started the year with the expectation that these paragons of our society would see the error of thier ways and re-invent themselves. Perhaps it would be a return to the “greyheads”of decades past. A time long gone when the bank manager was a pillar of society and a denison of the local community. Surely these mega institutions would revert to the golden age and we could start looking up to them again?
Well how wrong we were. The year, indeed decade, ended and the new one started with the news reports full of the proposed massive bonuses that these people wanted to pay themselves. Not swayed by a proposed windfall tax on bonuses they went ahead and awarded themselves vast sums anyway!
And who is to pay - we all know the answer - the taxpayer. The tax take is higher now than at any time in the last 30 years and we have the pospect of a new budget in the next couple of weeks that can only see an increase of this burden on the population of this downtrodden nation we misguidedly call “Great Britain”. We are taxed on our income, taxed on our purchases (I understand taxing luxeries like reed diffusers, but will they really slap some on food?!), taxed when we try to give some to help our children through higher education (which we now have to pay for - unlike our politicians when they were going through it) and taxed when we die!
We have to ask the question - Why do the government need so much of our hard earned money? What do they do with it? Perhaps the time has come for the state to contract and realise that they cannot run everything. Currently the average worker in this country is spending two days a week effectively working for the government. Undoubtedly that will soon become three. Communism failed in the 1980s but maybe this is the way it will eventually win - born out of the capitalist system!
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