It irritates me that people don’t appreciate what tax does for them.
So I’m going to write about what tax does for me. And ask others to do the same. Twitter it using #TheJoyofTax
What did tax do for me today? It paid for the Willows nature reserve in Downham Market (page 16) which my family visited this morning.
No, the earth did not move as a result. But we enjoyed it. And it could not have happened without a public authority to provide and preserve that space in this town. And I appreciate that. And don’t want to lose it. That is the Joy of Tax.
Tax has been preserving the British Elm by disposing of diseased trees quickly but no doubt with the cuts, we will finally see the complete demise of this lovely tree.
See this from the BBC on The decline of the British Elm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8912727.stm
Chris
Like the title. It reminds me of something…
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Have you never heard of the National Trust, Richard?
By the way, the title is just embarrassing, even by your poor standards of writing.
@Delphinium
If you’re trying to move the centre it’s one thing
Pushing the centre over the edge is something quite different
Um, I might be wrong, but
– there are a wide variety of charities (and other organisations) which support nature, nature reserves, and so on, all without consuming or requiring tax, but rather seeking voluntary donations. I would suspect that they do more to safeguard nature in the UK than our taxes do, and haven’t seen any decent figures published to the contrary.
– at a variety of levels, taxes need do no more than provide legislation that defines certain land usages and protections. Tax need not actually be spent doing these things if private enterprise can do it for us. For example, let’s say we say that a certain percentage of farming land must be wildflower meadows or lie fallow in certain periods, or that farmers must retain Y proportion or quantity of hedgerows… we don’t actually need to spend taxpayers money looking after the hedgerows, that’s daft if the farmers can be persuaded or co-erced into doing so as a matter of course.
Sorry, Richard, but I suggest that your assertion that “Willows Nature Reserve… could not have happened without a public authority {and tax funding]” cannot be true; similar schemes demonstrably DO happen without local council taxes , or other taxes, being involved at all. See the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust for many examples of this, and otehrs besides.
Obviously I accept that this particular reserve may well exist because of “tax”, if that’s a fact I can’t argue with it – but I don’t see how that means you can suggest that it ONLY exists because of “tax”, or imply that it wouldn’t exist without?
AVI