When I buy a product I like to know exactly what I am getting and exactly how much I am paying for it. Paying tax is really quite similar, you pay a certain amount of money and in exchange your country's infrastructure is managed. Personally I find tax far too complicated, so I am never really sure how much I am paying.
V.A.T. should only be charged on luxury items such as cars, alchohol, and cigarettes. It shouldn't be charged on essential things such as fuel, or certain types of food (only healthy food should be exempt.)
In what way is a tax that is a percentage of your earnings not income tax? National Insurance is just a way of increasing our income tax without calling it by its real name. I would like to abolish national insurance and add it directly to income tax. The income tax paid by employers would instead be paid by employees, but each employer would be legally required to increase the wage of each employee by the exact amount to compensate. Effectively this would make no difference at all, except for the fact that it would make income tax more transparent.
People who earn a lot of money benefit significantly more from society than people who earn a little. People with wealth can enjoy more luxury items than other people, luxury items created by people with significantly less money than themselves. Because high earners benefit more from society they should contribute more to society. People who earn very little should pay little (or even no) income tax, people who earn more should pay a higher rate. I believe that once a certain wage threshold has been passed people who are what I consider ultra-high earners should pay as much as 80% tax, maybe even more. If the TV documentaries I have seen are to be believed, some of the highest earners in this country are paying a lower income tax percent than the lowest earners, this injustice must be addressed!
Everyone should make their own way in life. Not being a high earner I would love to be able to give my children my house when my wife and I die so that they can benefit from the sale of it, it would be nice for them but will they really need the money? I ask this question because I am against wealth being passed down the generations. I really don't like the idea that some people will live a life of a financially higher standard than my own despite the fact that they have never worked a day in their life, these people were born into a family where some distant relative from many generations past earned a lot of money, or were possibly rewarded by a past king for performing an act such as fighting in the crusades.
These people live in unearned wealth while the rest of us work hard and support them. It is because of this that I would like to introduce an inheritance tax of 50%. This rate would only apply above a certain level (for illustrative purposes £2.5 million), over the next few generations the accumulated wealth of these families will eventually diminish to the point where they have to work for a living just like the rest of us.
I believe road tax is pointless. I could drive 10 miles per week and still pay the same rate as someone who travels 1,000 miles in the same period. The government gives us different tax rates depending on the size of our cars' engines, but again this makes no sense. If I drive 10 miles per week in a 5 litre 4x4 off road car I will have less of an impact on the environment than someone who drives a 1 litre car 1,000 miles per week.
Road tax should be scrapped. Instead the tax should be based on consumption, which means it should be taken from the tax already charged on fuel. This is the only way to fairly charge road tax. In addition, road tax shouldn't merely be a "tax for people who use the roads" (apart from the fact that cyclists use roads free of charge), it should be a tax for maintaining our roads. On heavily used routes the tax on fueld would be higher, on lightly used routes the tax on fuel would be slightly lower. This would encourage people to use less expensive petrol stations to refuel, having the effect of helping to distribute traffic congestion. In addition to this the tax collected within certain areas should mostly be spent on maintaining the road conditions within those areas, higher use means higher maintenance costs. A percentage of all road-incurred tax would be put aside for maintaining motorways and the development of new routes.