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Tax and Britain Paul Marks sees who is really getting shafted by state
It is well known that Sweden has the highest taxes in the Western world (one should always been careful to remember that it is the Western world – the corrupt regimes and plundering rebels in much of the rest of the world make their ‘tax as a percentage of G.D.P.’ stats quite meaningless).
However, as the Adam Smith Institute has reminded us, it is Britain were taxes have gone up the fastest (in the European Union and, I believe, in the Western world generally world) since 1997.
There is one good thing about this. At least now people will stop talking about there being an economic concept behind ‘New’ Labour.
There may be many new things about the present government, but its economic policy of tax, spend and regulate is not new.
Paul Marks
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Clearly you did not read the Adam Smith Institute article or you would have seen their table showing that Japan is the country in the western world with the highest tax increase between 1997 and 2002.
But never mind, it’s not really worth reading.
It goes on about how it was cutting taxes since 1979 that made Britian the fourth richest economy, successful. better than our European ‘competitors’ etc etc.
Yet their own ‘Tax Freedom’ table (which shows the day when people have earned enough to pay off all their taxes) gives the opposite message, that taxes were highest under Mrs Thatcher, and still higher than under Labour when the Tories left office. Oh well.
Tax Freedom Day
1979 – May 25
1990 – June 2
1997 – May 27
MJ TUrner
Well, that rather depends on ones definition of ‘Western world’ doesn’t it. Yes, the article clearly states that Japan has undergone the highest tax increases of the G7 countries but if you regard Japan as part of the Asian bloc as opposed to the ‘West’ then Britain’s tax rates have been the highest.
As regards the Tax Freedom table, may I suggest your highly selective use of key dates paints a distorted picture. The table clearly shows the advance of Tax Freedom day throughout the early 80’s (15th June in 1982) and then an gradual receeding as the Thatcher reforms took effect until 1994 (24th May) and then an upward swing again.
Last year it was June 10th.
So, if that was an attempt at spin, it was a piss-poor one. My own view is that it is scandalous that Tax Freedom day has hovered between Mid-May and Mid-June for over 35 years regardless of who has been in power and it is one of the many reasons why I am a libertarian and not a Tory.
I didn’t realise I was attacking you, I was attacking the ASI for getting the facts wrong. I didn’t chose selective dates, I chose the year Thatcher took office, the year she left office and the year Major left office. Hardly ‘selective’.
Those figures tell us that at similar periods of economic expansion (e..g 1979 and 1990) taxes were lower in the former than the latter.
Is Japan part of the western world,? I think most people would agree with me that it is.
As for your view, I think it’s a fine view and one I am sure you have thought out well. Nothing to do with my post however.
MJ Turner
I didn’t realise you were attacking me either. I just realised that you were wrong and proceeded to illustrate why.
If my post above is nothing to do with your initial post then why are you bothering to respond to it? I also feel obliged to point out that the second paragraph of your response is just meaningless wriggling.
If you wish to view Japan as part of the West then fine but that does not negate the fact that, according to the ASI data, taxes have appreciably risen under this government.
I think maybe we’re reading different posts. I wasn’t attacking you — I said I thought your view was a fine one. I meant that as a compliment — I certainly believe that the lower- taxed 1950s, 1960s and 1970s are a better economic model than the high-tax 1980s.
But as clearly I have been unclear, I will just recap what I was trying to say.
According to ASI data taxes were higher under Thatcher than every year in the 1970s except one. Therefore I think more is needed if we are to believe lower taxes were the explanation for Britain’s improved economic performance in the 1980s/1990s.
To justify that argument, 1979, 1990 and 1997 are not ‘selective’ dates but the dates that Labour left office/the Tories took office, ditto Thatcher/Major and Major/Blair. But it doesn’t really matter about the dates — taxes were higher under Thatcher in every year than they were in 1979.
Yes, I grant that taxes were still ludicrously high under Thatcher but she did instigate the reforms that enabled them to gradually recede from 1982 to 1994.
I cannot agree with you that the 1960’s and 1970’s were a low-tax era. My idea of ‘low taxes’ is a great deal lower than that.
There are other factors which contributed to the prosperity of the 1980’s and 1990’s such as large-scale privatisation.
I apologise for forgetting Japan – it was simply a lapse (in my mind I tend to think of Japanese government as spend-spend-spend deficit spenders, so I forget they are also tax increasers also).
As for the M. Thatcher government – my blog contained no mention of it (please read it again).
Of course one can blame J. Howe for the vast tax increases in the early part of the 1979 government – but there is the point of who appointed this disgusting man – still in 1990 the disgusting man punished the person who had (in large measure) created him.
One of the most interesting questions concerning M. Thatcher is why she promoted people who ALMOST ALL had voted against here for the leadership in 1975. Almost all the senior ministers in the government were shits. M. Thatcher seemed to lack any real ability to judge people – and she never gained this abilty (think of the support of the vile Major creature in the last years of the government).
Paul Marks.