Pay Your Taxes, Be Happy
Gawd the sound and fury at the farmers’ march against inheritance tax, which according to BBC fact checkers, will affect only around 600 farmers with earning above £1 million. For couples the amount goes up to £3 million. But truths don’t count. There’s bumptious Jeremy Clarkson moaning about ‘unfairness’. He’d previously said he’d became a landowner so ‘The government doesn’t get any of my money when I die.’ (post on the Top Gear website 2010) and that this was “the critical” motive for his purchase. Now he claims he wanted to own land to shoot game but told the tax story because it was ‘better PR’ https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/celebs-tv/jeremy-clarkson-says-not-true-9739591 And look, the well loaded Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, warning that farmers will sell land to foreigners who are hovering, ready to buy it up. Fearmongering and misinformation works, every time.
Margaret Thatcher gave farmers the right to pass on their holdings without paying inheritance tax. Before that most paid their dues like other Brits. Not the most privileged class, obviously, or the Royals whose birthright it is to keep all they own.
A loony petition is also currently circulating calling for a new election. It was launched by Michael Westwood, a businessman, who told the Daily Express, ‘It’s about fighting back against all the increases in taxes and the cost of inflation.’ Around 2 million names have allegedly signed it. Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith has piled in. https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-petition-fact-checked-
I really don’t get it. Why do Scandinavians and many other European nationals readily accept that high tax revenues spent wisely help to make nations more equal, cohesive and content? Why are the UK and US so very tax-phobic? Big questions, no easy answers..
But I can say this with some certainty: resenting or finding ways to dodge taxes, as so many middle, upper classes and Royals do, is making GB a mean and a miserable place. In the latest World Happiness Survey, once again, the highly taxed Nordic nations -Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden came top. The UK and US were way down at 20 and 23 respectively.
Hatred of taxes is embedded in our culture.
Our accountant and the lawyer who recently drafted our wills were both exceedingly alarmed that we didn’t want to lower or avoid inheritance tax which would have to be paid by those to whom we are leaving some of what we own. Inheritance is one of the biggest causes of inequality in the world. After leaving a proportion to charities, our offspring will get the rest and the flat. The taxes will benefit others. That’s how it should be. And is in the happy nations listed above.
My old friend Jen, a doughty English northerner, is married to a Swedish political aide. They live in Stockholm. His health is deteriorating and he now needs full time care at home which he gets from her and ‘wonderful’ state funded professionals who turn up everyday. Contrast that with Pamela, someone I once worked with. Her son, 40, has been disabled since he was knocked off his motorbike and run over 10 years ago. She is arthritic. They get a carer for two hours, two days a week. Scandinavians believe in high taxes and collective responsibility. Britain is a jungle of competing individual needs and wants, suffering and perpetual opposition to taxes.
From government Isa savings to investment lures, people are promised ‘tax free’ profits. And they get excited. School children are not taught that taxes pay for the NHS, the arts, schools, all the stuff that people really need, want and deserve. I have just come back from a hospital check up and, as ever, left feeling deeply grateful for the service we get, free when needed. Subsidized museums and theatres, the parks we all love, shared spaces, would not exist without public funds.
Tax rises are not a plague that Labour, when in power, passes on to the nation. In January 2024, Full Fact quoted the Institute of Fiscal Studies which concluded that under Sunak GB then had “the biggest tax-raising parliament in modern times”. It’s quite a claim. They got the money in, but didn’t redistribute it or spend it judiciously. Too much was squandered on crony contracts, mismanaged projects, ministerial luxuries and MP expenses. High taxes can only be supported if the money is spent on the general good.
Thatcher believed people only cared about themselves, their families and close circles. She was wrong. Social bonds make us human and happy.
The organised anti-tax bullies must not prevail. . Starmer and Reeves must face them down and remember that millions of us who voted for Labour yearn to live in a land where all of us can belong, be happy and thrive.
Published in The I newspaper, September 2024