Because paying for services is expensive – taxation pays for education, defence, pensions, benefits, social services, the health service, roads – everything in the public sector – and for supporting industry, employment and more recently some of our banks when they got into trouble. Lower taxation means fewer services and people having to pay for their education, medical treatment etc as they did before 1945. The important thing about taxation is that it should be fair – in my opinion that means people who earn good salaries paying more because they can afford it
You may think tax is high but the Government spends more than it raises from taxation which is why so much has had to be borrowed and now has to be paid back.
It’s not as bad as in Scandinavian countries, where nearly 50% of your income goes to the tax man! I suppose if you want schools, social services, a police force, a fire service, bin collections, road repairs, a health service, pensions, benefits, an army, a navy and an air force, you have to agree to pay taxes. Unless, of course, you would like to take to the road in a horse drawn caravan, or live in a cave on a hill or a hut in a forest. In the end, it depends what the majority of people want. In America tax is much lower, but unless you have medical insurance you run the risk of not getting proper treatment if you became seriously ill. In Sweden there’s no problem about getting health care, or a great education, but people pay very high taxes all their working lives. I think most people in Scotland would be more towards the Swedish than the American model, though I do agree that perhaps some bits of the benefits system need to be looked at again. It’s annoying to hear of people who make no effort to find a job to get a lot of benefits.
Because paying for services is expensive – taxation pays for education, defence, pensions, benefits, social services, the health service, roads – everything in the public sector – and for supporting industry, employment and more recently some of our banks when they got into trouble. Lower taxation means fewer services and people having to pay for their education, medical treatment etc as they did before 1945. The important thing about taxation is that it should be fair – in my opinion that means people who earn good salaries paying more because they can afford it
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You may think tax is high but the Government spends more than it raises from taxation which is why so much has had to be borrowed and now has to be paid back.
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It’s not as bad as in Scandinavian countries, where nearly 50% of your income goes to the tax man! I suppose if you want schools, social services, a police force, a fire service, bin collections, road repairs, a health service, pensions, benefits, an army, a navy and an air force, you have to agree to pay taxes. Unless, of course, you would like to take to the road in a horse drawn caravan, or live in a cave on a hill or a hut in a forest. In the end, it depends what the majority of people want. In America tax is much lower, but unless you have medical insurance you run the risk of not getting proper treatment if you became seriously ill. In Sweden there’s no problem about getting health care, or a great education, but people pay very high taxes all their working lives. I think most people in Scotland would be more towards the Swedish than the American model, though I do agree that perhaps some bits of the benefits system need to be looked at again. It’s annoying to hear of people who make no effort to find a job to get a lot of benefits.
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