Taxes paid in anger

Posted on

Several people have already referred in comments to Simon Jenkins' article in the Guardian on tax today - which is very good (everyone has their day). I recommend it.

As he concludes:

Property taxes cannot be evaded, and properly imposed are a fair generator of government revenue. Better, they are traditionally paid in anger. Any tax paid in anger is a good tax — the opposite of a stealth tax, because the payer demands to know how it is spent. Property taxes are thus a spur to democratic interest and activity. That, of course, is why politicians detest them.

Two things: this is not a plea for an increase in council tax, it is a plea for property land value taxation to capture wealth as a tax base.

Second, Jenkins' point on tax and democracy is a good one. I have argued there are five reasons to tax:

  1. Raise revenue;
  2. Reprice goods and services considered to be incorrectly priced by the market such as tobacco, alcohol, carbon emissions etc.;
  3. Redistribute income and wealth;
  4. Raise representation within the democratic process because it has been found that only when an electorate and a government are bound by the common interest of tax does democratic accountability really work; and finally to facilitate:
  5. Reorganisation of the economy through fiscal policy.

Jenkins is specifically endorsing point 4 - one that few people seem to understand but which seems increasingly important.


Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:

You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.

And if you would like to support this blog you can, here: