The government plans to send a letter to each taxpayer, containing a breakdown how the money is spent. For example, a £25,000 income, before taxes, may produce £5,702.12 in taxes. According to The Independent, this breaks down as follows:
Welfare | £1,901 | 33.3% |
Health | £993 | 17.4% |
Education | £743 | 13% |
Debt | £363 | 6.4 |
Defence | £329 | 5.8% |
Infrastructure, agriculture and industry | £329 | 5.8% |
Public order | £284 | 5% |
Other | £227 | 4% |
Government administration | £125 | 2.2% |
Housing | £113 | 2% |
Recreation, religion and culture | £113 | 2% |
Environment | £96 | 1.7% |
Overseas aid | £57 | 1% |
European Union | £28 | 0.5% |
The next step seems clear to me:
Dear Taxman, I shall write, at your earliest convenience, please split my funds and any future donations as follows until further notice, followed by my own fund split. Obviously, I’ll drastically cut the defence budget to boost investment in the environment , education and dept repayment. The 4% “other” will need a closer look, and more money needs to go into health and education in order to reduce future expense on welfare, and so on.
Obviously, your fund split will be different from mine, and I can’t help wondering: just like Wikipedia converges to truth by reflecting many voices, maybe our collective decision how to spent our own money would lead to a smarter way, and happier citizens.
Democratic taxes for everyone!
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