Actress Emma Thompson and her husband refuse to pay 'a penny more' in taxes until HSB

[d000hg]

What they are actually saying is that they are deserving rich whereas bankers are not.

I don't think so. She is happy to pay tax on her riches, but wants others to do the same.

[DodgyAgent]

I don't think so. She is happy to pay tax on her riches, but wants others to do the same.

She of course can afford to say that and she believes it gives her lifestyle some sort of sanctity. By wishing socialism on others she is of course killing off aspiration and routes to the wealth that she herself enjoys.

[d000hg]

She of course can afford to say that and she believes it gives her lifestyle some sort of sanctity. By wishing socialism on others she is of course killing off aspiration and routes to the wealth that she herself enjoys.

How is "people should stop fiddling their taxes" socialist?

[DodgyAgent]

How is "people should stop fiddling their taxes" socialist?

Socialist doctrine says that the state should provide. if you think about where our taxes go they mostly disappear into this part of our system. If it remains unchallenged more and more of our income will be taken from us and redistributed by these people.
The effect will be more people living under the dead hand control of the state, more of the people doing the taxing and redistribution gaining wealth and power of their own and a society that is considerably poorer than it is now.
We have a duty to make it as hard as we can for people to raise tax, that way they might just consider how it is used with a bit more humility and efficiency.

[SueEllen]

Socialist doctrine says that the state should provide. if you think about where our taxes go they mostly disappear into this part of our system. If it remains unchallenged more and more of our income will be taken from us and redistributed by these people.
The effect will be more people living under the dead hand control of the state, more of the people doing the taxing and redistribution gaining wealth and power of their own and a society that is considerably poorer than it is now.
We have a duty to make it as hard as we can for people to raise tax, that way they might just consider how it is used with a bit more humility and efficiency.

So you are a libertarian like a lot of those US nutters.

You don't want the state to provide anything unless you specifically agree with it?

As far as I'm concerned people should pay the taxes they are legally due to pay under the law and not a penny more. If the state puts in screwed up regulations which people legitimately use to lower the amount of tax they pay, then they are still adhering to my principles as then it's the state's fault for having that badly written legislation there in the first place.

[expat]

So you are a libertarian like a lot of those US nutters.

You don't want the state to provide anything unless you specifically agree with it?

As far as I'm concerned people should pay the taxes athey are legally due to pay under the law and not a penny more. If the state puts in screwed up regulations which people legitimately use to lower the amount of tax they pay, then they are still adhering to my principles as then it's the state's fault for having that badly written legislation there in the first place.

It is not at all self-evident that there is a real moral obligation to pay even those taxes that one is "due to pay" under the law. That presumes that the law is just, and that requires justification.

I could not put it better than the US Declaration of Independence which said "... to secure these ends governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". That is, the government exercises its powers because these powers are delegated to it from the people. It follows as night follows day that the government can not rightfully exercise any power that the people could not rightfully exercise in the first place. As Mark Twain pithily expressed it, the function of government is to receive orders, not to give them.

It remains to be demonstrated that the people, from whom the only just power of government derives, themselves have any right whatsoever to take away something like half your earnings by force and without discussion. I'd be happy to hear someone try to justify the idea that all your money and everything else belongs to the government; because without that idea, the whole system of compulsory universal income tax itself is nothing more than racketeering.

[DodgyAgent]

So you are a libertarian like a lot of those US nutters.

You don't want the state to provide anything unless you specifically agree with it?

As far as I'm concerned people should pay the taxes they are legally due to pay under the law and not a penny more. If the state puts in screwed up regulations which people legitimately use to lower the amount of tax they pay, then they are still adhering to my principles as then it's the state's fault for having that badly written legislation there in the first place.

Not at all/ I believe that public services should be run primarily for the benefit of those who use them. Time and again they fail. Public sector workers enjoy the privilege of working in an environment where they come first not the customer. If public services delivered as they should there would be no need for private education, private health and other necessities. people could then live a worthwhile and happy life on low pay.

[SueEllen]

Not at all/ I believe that public services should be run primarily for the benefit of those who use them. Time and again they fail. Public sector workers enjoy the privilege of working in an environment where they come first not the customer. If public services delivered as they should there would be no need for private education, private health and other necessities. people could then live a worthwhile and happy life on low pay.

You sound like a bloody socialist!

[SueEllen]

It is not at all self-evident that there is a real moral obligation to pay even those taxes that one is "due to pay" under the law. That presumes that the law is just, and that requires justification.

I could not put it better than the US Declaration of Independence which said "... to secure these ends governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". That is, the government exercises its powers because these powers are delegated to it from the people. It follows as night follows day that the government can not rightfully exercise any power that the people could not rightfully exercise in the first place. As Mark Twain pithily expressed it, the function of government is to receive orders, not to give them.

It remains to be demonstrated that the people, from whom the only just power of government derives, themselves have any right whatsoever to take away something like half your earnings by force and without discussion. I'd be happy to hear someone try to justify the idea that all your money and everything else belongs to the government; because without that idea, the whole system of compulsory universal income tax itself is nothing more than racketeering.

And you sound like one of the nutters I mentioned before....

[DodgyAgent]

You sound like a bloody socialist!

It is this ideology that is driving the Tory party through Ian Duncan Smith and previously Michael Gove.