Death & Taxes

Bloody Hell! I've just done my V.A.T. return to discover that I owe them. I know that might be the normal expectation, but because I mostly sell zero-rated goods (comics) and pay V.A.T. on certain overheads (storage costs and stationery, mostly), I've become used to paying no more and even a small rebate every quarter. Not this time. It all comes of trying to rid myself of some of the vatable residue still hanging about from the shop and the years thereafter when I was still "doing" models. No, not that kind of model, unfortunately. Up to a point, this is actually good news, as I can't afford to hang on to them for the rest of my life and on average I'm probably getting back most of what they cost me. Still, paying more tax....

Of course someone needs to be paying tax, indeed we'd better all start paying more soon, however much we'll moan about it, as government borrowing seems just about stretched to breaking point.

A recent feature on The Daily Show demonstrated an American's mock outrage at the tax rates in Scandinavia and confusion at the population's contentment with their higher levies. It illustrated a point which I think the LibDems have been trying (and clearly failing) to make over the past few years. People will accept taxation if they are happy with the corresponding expenditure. In this country we are not.

Everything - transport, defence, healthcare, education to a lesser extent, is done on the cheap i.e. not as well as it could be. Then we moan about how much it cost to deliver mediocrity. If we spent more and had the standards that would satisfy the majority, we would have to pay more tax. We might resent it less than paying what we do for transport that's clogged, worn out armour and understaffed hospitals. But who's going to risk putting that in a budget?

It's exactly the policy Obama claims to be following and for which the right are labelling him a socialist. Sticks and stones. He'd rather be mis-labelled and get the desired result. I doubt that we have any politicians this side of the pond ready to stick their necks out, so it's mediocrity or worse for the forseeable future....