{"id":11808,"date":"2011-09-09T10:26:09","date_gmt":"2011-09-09T09:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=11808"},"modified":"2011-09-09T10:26:09","modified_gmt":"2011-09-09T09:26:09","slug":"taxes-paid-in-anger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2011\/09\/09\/taxes-paid-in-anger\/","title":{"rendered":"Taxes paid in anger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several people have\u00a0already\u00a0referred in comments to Simon Jenkins' article in the Guardian<\/a> on tax today - which is very good (everyone has their day). I\u00a0recommend\u00a0it.<\/p>\n

As he concludes:<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Two things: this is not a plea for an increase in council tax, it is a plea for property\u00a0land\u00a0value taxation to capture wealth as a tax base.<\/p>\n

Second, Jenkins' point on tax and democracy is a good one. I have argued there are five reasons to tax:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Raise revenue;<\/li>\n
  2. Reprice goods and services considered to be incorrectly priced by the market such as tobacco, alcohol, carbon emissions etc.;<\/li>\n
  3. Redistribute income and wealth;<\/li>\n
  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:<\/li>\n
  5. Reorganisation of the economy through fiscal policy.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Jenkins is specifically endorsing point 4 - one that few people seem to\u00a0understand\u00a0but which seems increasingly important.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Several people have\u00a0already\u00a0referred in comments to Simon Jenkins’ article in the Guardian on tax today – which is very good (everyone has their day). I\u00a0recommend\u00a0it.
     Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-tax-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}