Realist, not conformist analysis of the latest financial, business and political news

Tax: Now Just The Price We Pay For Them To Leave Us Alone

There was a day when here in the West, government did things.

Useful things, that made the lives of people better.

Of course at the same time they did terrible useless things too, that made people’s lives worse.

But on average, it was generally accepted that the useful things they did were useful enough to tolerate the terrible things they did.

Those days are gone baby – they disappeared in the rear-view mirror a lonnnnnnng time ago.

Today in the West, our governments now do very few useful things, and very many terrible things.

And the useful things are mostly done by accident, just as the final act of a dying man might be to inadvertently clean a spot on the kitchen floor where he collapses, with some spastic leg twitching caused by his fading brain activity.

Everywhere we look, our governments are collapsing into corruption and exhaustion – no longer willing or able to competently do the things they once usefully did, and increasingly willing and able to do only more of the horrifying things.

Ordinarily at this time, the peasants revolt – rising up with burning torches and pitchforks they surge through the streets and haul out their rulers from their gilded palaces and hang them from lampposts in the town square.

That course of action is now rather difficult though – our rulers have surrounded themselves with bullet-proof windows, security perimeters and armed guards to preclude precisely this kind of thing.

So what’s the modern version here in the West? Well, the French version is the gilets jaunes – rally behind a symbol and smash the place up. If you can’t actually get into Nottingham Castle the Elysses Palace and string up Alan Rickman Emmanuel Macron and his matriarchal necromancer elderly acting coach Brigitte, smashing up the place is the next best thing, right?

A tax strike would previously have been worth a go – depriving rulers of the money they need to pay for the security perimeters and armed guards has worked in the past, but they got wise to that and started deducting the taxes at source. We can’t even cut them off from our money very easily (and if they get their cashless society, they’ll be able to use negative interest rates to deduct funds not just before you get paid, but afterwards too)

So how can we deal with this?

I suggest we stop thinking about taxes as paying for something useful – this type of thinking paralyses us and causes us to refuse to do that which needs doing. Because our taxes are supposed to pay for it.

We are no longer charitable, because our taxes pay for dole money.
We no longer look after the verge outside our homes, because our taxes are supposed to pay for a council worker with a strimmer.
We don’t repair potholes in our roads, because council workmen are supposed to fill them in.

Just to check that last one, I contacted my local council.

“I was wondering if I could personally pay a local company to make repairs to the potholes that are causing damage to my car out of my money, and if so, would they be granted permission to close the road while my privately-funded repairs were being carried out? “

And they said…………

“It would not be possible for you undertake these repairs, and no permission would be given to close the road.”

So I proposed I make a payment to them, to be spent on repairing the road:

“…could I instead make a voluntary tax contribution on the condition the money is to be spent on these road repairs?”

And they said…

“…the County Council will not accept payment from members of the public for the provision of highway maintenance over and above that already collected via the Council Tax”

I made one last attempt…

“I have obtained quotes for the work which are acceptable to me and my neighbours – is there really no way we can as private individuals simply pay for the repairs to our road?”

They responded:

“…it is not possible to accept any from of funding other than that accepted via the Council Tax and Central Government.”

So I just went out and bought a bag of sand and pounded it into the hole one night. A temporary fix, admittedly.

£5 of sand and five minutes of my time.

No doubt the council are scouring CCTV as we speak in an attempt to bring to justice the criminal that repaired the road.

Meanwhile our taxes go instead on counting lesbians, policing hate speech, foreign aid, and funding the Indian space program. And aircraft carriers that carry no aircraft.

While our rulers build duckhouses and visit whorehouses.

Their goals are no longer our goals, and the tax they take is no longer helping us maintain our society. Tax is no longer the price you pay for a civilised country, but a price you pay for them to leave you alone. They are just a political mafia now, extorting protection money that merely buys you their assurance they will not metaphorically break your legs.

Pay them by all means – just don’t expect any actual services.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Total
0
Shares
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

6 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Quentin Vole
Quentin Vole
5 years ago

Council Tax would be the obvious place to start – a few thousand pounds a year for most. If the government refuse to implement the result of my democratic vote, why should I pay taxes? “No taxation without representation” might make a good slogan. Re road repairs, pounding sand into a pothole might be only a temporary fix, but it will probably last longer than the mixture of horse hair and torn-up bus tickets that the council seem to use. The problem is that maintenance comes out of revenue, while capital spending is segregated. And no-one seems able to work… Read more »

Leo Savantt
Leo Savantt
5 years ago

“counting lesbians” would be comedy gold, if that is it wasn’t true.

Climan
Climan
5 years ago

Councils are now wasting money on declaring “Climate Emergencies”, I plan to demand to know, under FOIA, how much money has been spent to date, and how much has been delivered in terms of an altered climate, and whether or not any change is an improvement, or a degradation.

Rhoda Klapp
Rhoda Klapp
5 years ago
Reply to  Climan

Please ask them whether they are aiming at making it colder.

Q46
Q46
5 years ago

‘There was a day when here in the West, government did things.’

Time/date when this happened please.

‘Government’ at any point on the compass is and always has been an extortion and protection racket for the benefit of those running it, whatever name you give the system it allegedly operates under.

Government is just a legitimised Mafia organisation.

JdL
JdL
5 years ago

What a perfect example of how governments work! Extort money allegedly for service X. Fail to provide service X. In addition, block the use of additional private funds to accomplish service X. Brilliant! If we hadn’t evolved such wonderful brains, we never could’ve come up with such a system.

6
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x