4 posts tagged “tax”
A major criticism of libertarian thought is that it is all doom and gloom and that it cannot accept compromise of any sort. That it is an all or nothing mantra espoused by a dank and less than cheerful minority. Now I can agree that indeed there are those within Libertarian circles that seem to be wracked by fury and bluster that to the average man would naturally seem quite irrational and indeed somewhat unproductive. However, I can clearly understand the frustration of the Libertarian in a world for which is gathering moss on any kind of revolutionary ideas or philosophical thought. Freedom is clearly a concept that has improved our lot, as this has been clearly shown by the wealth of nations within Europe and the US. The free market has brought with it many freedoms to our lives unthought-of in our parent’s day, let alone our grandparents. One can only imagine the world our children could inhabit with true freedom.
Peter Stark (US senator)
However, it is clear that we are not really free in the very real sense of free. Yes we are freer than most Chinese, Muslim or African people are. We are indeed much freer than our ancestors were. But just because we are freer than at any other time in our history does not mean that we are actually free. The word ‘freedom’ is used in the vernacular by all democratic govt’s. They have stolen its meaning so as to reinforce the idea that govt, taxation and the use of force are all arcane to us. As one can see from the interview that Jan has with this US senator, we see them become visibly angered by his questioning of the govt’s moral veracity. Clearly these questions hit nerves most of us wouldn’t dare touch. In this case Peter Stark tells Jan, ‘get the fuck out of here, or I’ll throw you out the window’. Clearly a violent statement made by someone reacting irrationally to a line of reasonable questioning. It clearly illustrates the tight hold that the state has on the minds of the majority.
So can we call this freedom then? Well as I said earlier, it may well be freedom compared to women in Muslim countries looking for equality. It may well be freedom compared to an African trying to feed his family or a Chinese man writing his blog. However our freedom is not real freedom, because real freedom would not use force against us. Real freedom would be to volunteer to pay your taxes without threat of fines, prison and violence if you so decided not to. Real freedom would be to choose your children’s education. Real freedom would be to choose your health provider. Real freedom would be to choose where you lived and not be confined by imaginary borders created by the state.
I understand that these thoughts create a sense of fear in most people. The reaction of the senator was a clear example of this. We have been told for so long that it is only the state that can manage our affairs and no one else. We somehow bestow meaningless virtue upon our politicians and public servants as if they do everything out of altruist desire alone. Govt is very similar to the comforting warm feeling people experience when they imagine a God that loves them. To challenge these thoughts is bound to create anxiety and uncertainty within most individuals. Therefore it is only natural for them to feel fear once this lie has been exposed.
I often ponder whether politicians are as unaware of the states use of violent threat. Is it possible that even our leaders have sedated themselves from its reality? Perhaps this is just me trying to make sense of what I consider to be such an obvious flaw in our system. However, I think they are only too aware of this threat as they feel a constant need to sugar coat everything with generalisations and hyperbole. Their constant use of rhetoric is a clear example of the smoke and mirrors politicians like to employ as a means to less constraint on their eventual decision making. Let’s face it, whenever has a politician made any real sense?
No, the freedom I dream of is a freedom to not be dictated to by individuals or a collective thereof that tells me to do what they say, not as they do. Real freedom is possible and indeed so are real ethics alike. But only without the mechanism that allows us to be manipulated, cajoled and frightened into subservience, which in turn allows this corruption to seep within the consciousness of us all. For too long the instrument of govt have been convincing us that ethics can only come from statehood and dogmatic acquiescence to it. It’s like saying we must support Everton football club and no other, come what may, however better the other sides maybe. The state is seared within us from childhood. We are told to take sides and indeed to praise all things state like. These ideas are permeated within us from a young age, whether by school, parenting or media, as a means to making us willing slaves that accept our plight as being for the greater good.
So when George Bush talks about freedom he understands only to clearly the need and desire each of us has have for such a notion. However, he goes about defacing its true meaning by expecting us to live within the confines of freedom under a benevolent dictator. However, it is unclear how long people can live within the twilight of religion and statehood. Indeed, I have no doubt that it will change at some good time in the future. Whether I'm here to see it or not, mankind has always striven for freedom and freedom is what he will get when he is good and ready for it.
Fairness is often a word banded around by politicians, particularly by those in the Labour party, but they are not exclusive to its use, it’s often known as ‘social justice’ too. Indeed it’s a word that appeals to the ‘fair minded’ within society. Indeed, it even allows us to encompass an ethical dimension to our lives, where we might feel one is lacking. But what is ‘fairness’ considered to be by our politicians? Well, they would consider that paying your taxes was fair, in that you give part of your labour to them that are less fortunate than yourself. In other words to remove some of your wealth to give to them that are less well off would be a fair exchange of wealth in their eyes.
However, this fairness is quite obscure when you consider that for them on low incomes are indeed taxed as heavily in real terms as those on higher incomes. Indeed even an annual salary of £10,000 brings a tax bill of £1,293.00 with it. However, a person earning £66,000 per year pays £21,175.20 in taxes. Of course the £44,000 or so that remains will buy this person a whole lot more than the £8.700 that is left on the lesser earnings. One only has to live in the real world to discover that £10,000 will not buy you very much over a year. So can it be fair that this individual pays any tax on this income at all? According to social justice policy this person must live a relatively frugal existence, renting no more than a bed sit and still pay £1,293 per year towards someone less well off than themselves, because that is fair.
However, is there really anything fair about taxation in reality, even for the rich? It is clear that politicians accrue some moral aspect to the fairness of wealth redistribution. They make out that this is a very real way in which we can provide equality amongst society. However, they always omit the way in which this wealth is redistributed of course. Of course, to most of us taxation is quite benign. Council tax perhaps raises the most eyebrows, partly because it’s seen as having little to do with a person’s ability to pay and based principally on the property they happen to rent or buy. For the most part, tax is seen as a skim on our earnings or purchases, for which the majority is left intact or the purchase still seems affordable. However, the methods by which these taxes are extracted are far from ethical in reality. To them that pay their taxes directly or those that collect VAT receipts will tell you. There are a series of threats, fines and coercion that are employed by government organisations unlike any other. They are afforded many more legal processes in forcibly extracting their due at ANY cost. These include imprisonment as well as violence too, ultimately including death if we dare to resist their coercion further.
Ok, for the most part death is a rare event in tax evasion, including imprisonment, hardly surprising really. But it’s quite clear that the government needs to use such threats to make sure we pay our taxes. So where does this stand with their principled pursuit of wealth redistribution then? Indeed it would appear that we have reached the smoke and mirrors that government so like to employ on these occasions. Having so swiftly convinced us that we have a moral duty to help our fellow man, that our wealth is immorally extracted from us by the fear of force. Can we safely say now that wealth redistribution in this manner has any kind of ethical dimension to it?
Of course not, but regrettably this is the great unmentionable within society, having sedated ourselves so completely from its corruption. We are so seduced by seemingly sensible reasoning, whilst confused by its threat of violence. This is why the enslaved can scoff so easily at the slave who speaks out. We all fear the threat of violence from the state whether we like it or not. To ignore it is one thing, but to support it, well, is to have lost all moral judgement completely. As for fairness one can clearly see that in its current state, that social justice is neither fair nor just.
I was driven to think about the absurd situation that most single people have in life regarding working. Most of us agree that we work out of a sheer need and desire for a better lifestyle. It’s a very good reason actually, born out of a need to have more things that make our lives more comfortable and tolerable.
However, ever since I can remember (1985 to be precise, when I left school) I was confronted by the thought that claiming benefits brought with it far more rewards than work could. In hindsight I was earning £35 per week, for which the average bed-sit rent was around £30 - £40 per week at the time. The dole was around £19 per week for under 18’s and if I were renting would have received full housing benefit to cover this cost on top. Earning £35 per week I would have had to pay 65 pence in every £1 I earned above £19 towards my rent. Therefore I would have had to pay £10.40 towards my rent leaving me with £24.60 of my then earnings to spend on as I pleased. A wapping £5.60 better off per week than being on the dole. I know, this was 1985, when a fiver bought a whole evening out on a Saturday night, but still, even my pea-sized brain at 16 had worked out, that working was indeed a waste of time. Fortunately, though I dabbled with unemployment for a year or so, I quickly became bored and decided work was perhaps a better way of improving my lot in the long run.
Now to the current situation, take an average earnings for
someone in London, say between £28,000 - £30,000. If you are one of
these people stuck in this wage bracket, you are no doubt the ones
suffering the most. Why, you may ask? Well at current rates a salary of
£30,000 is taxed at a rate of £7985.12 a year and at £28,000 a year at
£7325.24. This includes National Insurance payments as well, bless
them! If you don’t believe me, please check the figures out yourself, as the link directs you
.
Of course there is Council Tax to consider as well, which if we assume
them to be in band A (the cheapest) with a single person discount the
current charge is anywhere between £850 - £1,000 per year in most
London boroughs. I’m not even gonna go near sales tax, currently riding
at 17.5%, a nice little skim on our regular purchases, but kind of
abstract all the same, just the way these thieving cartels (govts) like
it of course.
In all this we see a continual drain on our monthly incomes from a filthy lying scum that produces nothing accept thievery upon the masses. As some great soul tunes best described us performed in the 60’s & 70’s, we are nothing but ‘money makers’ for these lazy arses (govt). Now of course one must juxtapose this against Tax Credits, an infamous method for which govt encourages parenthood. Tax Credits are undoubtedly the most difficult benefit to work out. Indeed it is variable depending on your own individual circumstances. Believe me when I say it took me a fair while to put these into some kind of financial perspective that the layman could understand. Let me first explain that you can claim a Tax Credit (with children mind) on as much as £58,000 per year, as much as £66,000 per year if the poor blighter is under one years old. Who in God’s name would consider asking for benefits earning £66,000 per year? With the current inflation rates and the knowledge I’ve gleamed thus far, I would definitely consider it now mind.
And this is what I mean. One would have hoped that having reached £66,000 per year gross earnings that you wouldn’t need to go cap in hand to the govt for a few extra crumbs. But given a govt that recognises a need to explain its very existence, a few crumbs may indeed provide them with sufficient justification. Given that on those earnings you would be paying £21,460.92 per year in tax and national insurance I would say a few crumbs were indeed wanting. So what do us wage earners decide given this financial conundrum we are faced with? We decide to have fewer kids at an older age. Decisions to marry or cohabit tend to be based on financial need alone, forgetting our personal needs and responsibilities towards these important relationships, particularly to that of children. Those of us that have worked hard and given ourselves beyond average earnings are punished with higher taxes to feed the so called poor, for whom do nothing and achieve very little and on the whole contribute nil to the rest of the world in the form of production. They tend to learn little or nothing about getting along with people, because there is no net gain for them in fostering good relationships with people, because there entitlement (benefits) give them all they require. Welfare is a cancer that eats away at people’s hopes and dreams and provides zilch to a person’s happiness and well-being.
On the flip side there are those, who are working themselves to death, so that they can provide a good life for themselves and their families, who are forced to work longer hours including the wife or Mother of their children. This means they must leave their children in childcare, often with individuals they haven’t had much opportunity to talk with and make a good judgement as to their character. It’s appalling that a couple earning £33,000 each per year are forced to hand over £8975.72 each per year in taxes. These are most definitely the net losers within our system. They will have to pay proportionately far more in taxes than they will ever receive in benefits and will be thanked all the less for it. They are told of course that they are wealthy and enjoying a life that is beyond the reach of the average person. However, since when did someone who has worked hard deserve to have a proportion of their income given to a couple who have no intention of improving their lives through their own labour? The moral distinction is clear, them that work hard are punished and them that sit around are rewarded for their ineptness and rewarded further by producing yet more children. Whereas a couple earning £33,000 per year each are expected to swallow the cost whole, of every child they produce thereafter. Which family is more likely to make the positive choice to bare more offspring in your opinion?
Another pernicious thing is regarding the area of social housing, otherwise known as Council housing or housing associations. On the whole the social sector of rentals is filled to brimming with the entitled, only some 8% of tenants are working full time and claiming no benefits at all. For the most part, these cheap subsidised rents have no effect on the incomes of the entitled. The only possible positive effect that these cheaper rents provide the tax payer is less tax being spent on housing benefit payments. Who gains from this of course? Govt does. Whilst the general tax payer swallows the cost of market value rents, the inept wallow in cheap housing, for which the govt gladly spends less of our money to waste on other pursuits. These cheaper rents would be an enormous boost to the productive, almost as good as a 30% drop in taxes. But no, social housing is there to provide a cheap housing stock for govt to give to the inept who will never climb out of their malaise, thus keeping govt costs down as much as possible.
I am not saying of course that all people that find themselves on welfare at some point in life are all inept. Of course, many people find that their career and earning potential dries up significantly at certain times in their lives. This is every more reason that when those who are at their most productive should be given the opportunity to save their earnings in perpetuity. Then, when they are in need, they can draw upon that rich vein of resource they were able to amass during their most productive years. Instead they are left to fend upon the arbitrary nature of govt generosity and how much they feel these individuals are entitled too at any given time. In the long run govt considers their value to be the same as that of someone claiming entitlements throughout their lives. Only those rich enough (the super rich) can easily disguise their resources so as to hold on to them better and not be left with bugger all when the less productive times arrive.
An interesting blog by the devils kitchen recently regarding the divide and rule method used by our present govt… About the ONLY thing that is efficient about govt is the way it can so efficiently deflect all negativity onto something or someone else… They do this with such erudite precision that it is almost seemingly magical… However, if the only thing that keeps govt’s in power is the use of myth, then myths ye shall receive…
Govts understand only too well the myths and prejudices people hold and they use them as cunningly as they can to avoid any culpability… As long as people have enemies other than govt itself, they are hands free to throw their weight about as they please… perhaps the most hardest hit of all are the middle classes.. They are the largest taxpayers by far, for who receive the least handouts or tax breaks… They are indeed the more likely to be fined for speeding or parking illegally… Are more likely to pay fines in general for fear of losing their jobs… They work the longest hours… Their partners have to work and pay for child care in full… And they are the least likely to complain…
The socialist has always considered the middle classes as the parasites that enjoy far too much of the good life. Govts have continually hit them the hardest as they are such a soft target for whom complaints are rare… they are good little slaves that take their slapping with a sense of dignity unseen in any other groups throughout society...
The irony is that many of the middle classes these days have been so indoctrinated by state education that they themselves believe they are undeserving and should indeed pay their tax graciously... People like Tony Robins a filthy state whore that demands us to give even more as a means to ridding ourselves from selfishness only compound this stupidity... Of course pricks like him have no need to rely on the states capriciousness... He can afford to send his children to private school and avoid his income being halved by the state... But that’s another blog of course...
The middle class are the most productive by a whole, but they are truly shat upon at a great height, even made to feel guilty about their few indulgencies.. I look forward to the day the middle class rise up and say NO MORE!!..
If only?...
