If I ruled the world

General Discussion
1

… I would abolish all forms of tax and replace it with a single “Contribution to the Economy” (Con for short).

The cheapest form of tax to collect at the moment is VAT because companies collect the tax on behalf of the government every time they issue an invoice. Even then, an army of accountants are employed to assure compliance.

Using this principle, I would levy a Con on every pound sterling withdrawn, for any reason, from a Sterling bank account. The value of the Con would be a simple percentage of the value withdrawn and would be managed by the government presumably at budget time but collected by the banks. The size of that percentage would be an instant indicator of the performance of your government. (One of many reasons why it will never be adopted!).

I am no accountant but using very crude figures trawled from Google, it indicates that the percentage of Con based on today’s figures would be far less than the current rate of VAT.

I simply tried to work out the total tax needed to run the country and expressed that as a percentage of the total receipts of all bank transactions in Sterling accounts and subtracted the immense savings to be made by adopting it. It came to around 8% but that is an extremely crude estimate.

There are staggering savings to be made. We would not need thousands of HMRC employees and could sell all the government buildings they occupy. We could dispense with zillions of accountants because the Con is collected automatically by the banks. Only the bank software need be audited (although the PO scandal flags up a potential problem)

We would not need the VERY expensive tax avoidance lawyers or their intricate schemes because there is no way to avoid the Con.

And huge organisations like Amazon, Google etc. who extract a huge income from UK clients would be unable to perform any clever tax manipulation schemes.

So next time I go shopping, instead of paying 20% VAT on my purchases with money that has already been taxed when I earned it, I will simply pay the value demanded and have the 8% Con removed from my account.

And the best bit – no more bloody tax forms to lose sleep over.

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2

…I think you’d have to abolish cash as well for that to work. Otherwise the black economy would become the default way of buying and selling things.

3

That and underneath mattresses.

4

@Mik_Bennett they’re already moving in this direction. This is why taxes are moving to transction taxes - fees charged by government or paragovernmental entities like local authorities eg planning permission) or a % of the value of a transaction (eg VAT and other taxes).

On the basis that it’s easier to tax flows, than assets or some types of earnings which can be moved, or hidden, or ownership concealed.

5

@Chrismann there’s several books round this topic of why governments would like to get rid of cash eg The War on Cash .Amazon.co.uk

Too bad if cash disappears and the system fails due to war or social breakdown. Meanwhile governments have control, restricted several liberties, collect maximum data, can tax everything, and can tax it more anytime they feel like it.

6

I’m not advocating getting rid of cash, just that it would have to be abolished (which is probably impossible given how much is in circulation) in order for the “tax withdrawals” system to work.

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7

I would abolish all male leaders of all countries, religions, armies etc.

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8

I’m not convinced it would make that much difference, some female leaders have been just as blood thirsty as some male leaders.

9

The problem with female military leaders is that they won’t have seen active service at the sharp end in most countries.

I’m a big fan of not sending military personnel off to do a job that their commander hasn’t done him/herself.

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10

If I ruled the world, I would ban all religion. Been the cause of most of the conflicts there has ever been.

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11

Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Isabel Perón, that woman from Grantham whose name I can’t remember…

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12

So would I, but best of luck with that @Shiba :smiley:

13

It has always been about money with religion -“praying” on those with very little to give.

14

Absolutely!
There are too many so called experts in all walks of life who preach this and that on numerous topics/subjects but yet have no practical experience.

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15

Not sure about elsewhere, but in UK military you pretty much have to have done at least one operational tour to have any command over operational units.

16

Yes, but compared to the amount of male leaders, Putin, the Iranian clerics, North Korea, China,
Bolsonaro, Syria, Sudan and I could go on.

17

Hope I’m wrong, but expect the Great Little Fat One’s sister will succeed him and be far more ruthless…

18

….was not what @Jane_Williamson said. She simply said “leaders”.

It’s rather telling that no one else has considered that significant either.

19

I thought Jane was trying to be funny or ironic unless of course she thinks the UK’s three female PM’s had all been successful.

20

@tim17 I was pointing out that @Jane_Williamson 's comment was twisted to start a diversion about military leadership, which I don’t think was her intention. That twist makes the debate very different.

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