Are there any good taxes?

There is a simple answer to the question are there any good taxes? It is NO!

But that does not mean that taxes are not inevitable and some will need to be paid to keep communities secure and manage key services from rubbish to justice. But the idea there is good tax, as being floated by some politicians, is rubbish.

The problem is politicians and bureaucrats too often see their job as spenders of money. Why? That is not their job: their job is to administer our public affairs as inexpensively and equitably as possible. It is not to look for new ways to spend your money. But as I read about new initiatives to find new taxes I can only conclude that our politicians are deluded in what they think their job is.

I thought about this long and hard when I wrote the Aquitaine Trilogy. The concept was to create a new society and thus a new way of governing. What I believe is essential is to keep voters as close as possible to the spenders and for them to have some sanctions on those spenders.The most obvious is to vote them out of power. But the problem is that more and more it is bureaucrats and not the politicians who are in charge: but they largely remain faceless.

My solutions were varied. I restricted central government spending to that which was essential, transferring most local functions to the local area council who had to raise the money they spent themselves. So they had an ability to raise all forms of tax including income tax, but such tax was to a maximum level of both personal income and GDP. There was a specific policy of not paying money between departments and sectors of government. Whatever the argument about one collecting point for all one type of tax - income tax, sales tax etcetera -I do not believe there is a real saving when the money is then transferred round the system. It was also specified that an area did not have to provide a particular service - say health or schools - it had to see those services were available at a sensible price, or in some cases free. Central government provided regional hospitals of excellence and universities as well as major infrastructure and a national police force but not local police. Thus an area council could say privatise everything and offer very low taxes, whereas a next door area could offer higher taxes and more free services. The final kicker for the areas was that new areas could be formed by popular consensus - so a big area could lose a chunk of its area - and communities on the edge of an area could transfer to the next if they so desired. Needless to say such changes could not happen every few months however the point was that local councils had real power as well as real responsibility and they could easily lose part of their fiefdom if they did badly. That is genuine power to the people and runs totally against all modern trends where central governments are claiming more and more power - in the US there is a growing rift between the states and Washington, and in Europe it is worse where an unelected bureaucratic autocracy is ordering around the sovereign states. This is the reason the people have lost faith in politicians.

Another point was that central government taxes were if possible linked to what they did - instead of going into a nebulous pool to be paid out as the government decided. For instance road tax was spent on roads and the health fund on health - this means voters get to understand what government services really cost. It would be nice to be know what say health really cost even if an opt out is not an option.

The final point about the Aquitaine administration is the civil servants were in charge with two parliaments acting as supervisors and controllers. The civil service brief was simple - to keep the ship of state on a safe course without violent deviation. The politicians could suggest a new course and if the other house agreed that course had to be followed, or the civil servants could simple accept the recommendation in the first place. Of course the heads of various departments were required to report direct to both houses and could attend and take part in debates as relevant.

The point that was engrained was do not tax unless essential; do not spend if you can avoid it. Certainly nobody in those circumstances would be suggesting there was good tax - yes tax is inevitable but it is not good and it never should be good.

A moratorium on all new taxes and ways of collecting money from the public might be a good way of getting governments pointed in the right direction: reducing spending not looking for ways to finance excess. Now more than ever we need to live within our means.