U.K.Taxation, page 1

All three main political parties in the U.K - Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems believe in high taxation. The conservatives have always had the image of low taxation but they only really believe in cutting taxes for the rich. The tax burden on the average family actually increased during the Thatcher/Major years. They more than doubled VAT, increased national insurance contributions and the poorest 20 per cent ended up paying a greater share of their income in tax and N.I than the richest 20 per cent of the population.
Labour and the Lib Dems seem to want to tax and spend for it's own sake and are indifferent to the suffering high taxation causes people and businesses.
The reason taxation is so high in the U.K. and this is rarely mentioned in the mainstream media is the size of the interest on the national debt. In the first Thatcher administration the national debt was about 90 billion pounds on which the government was paying £9 billion a year. Now the national debt is well over 400 billion pounds on which the government is paying about £27 billion a year (equivalent to about 8 pence off the basic rate of income tax) to City institutions, a
scandalous waste of public money. Take away the needless debt interest and consider the phenomenal amount of waste in public spending (according to one report if U.K.administration was as efficient as public adminstration in the U.S. and Japan £73 billion could be knocked off public spending without hitting key public services) you can see that there is much scope to cut taxes without cutting spending on schools, hospitals, pensions etc. As a last resort, the government could easily print/issue the money itself debt-free and relieve the burden on the taxpayer but of course it can't because the bankers not the State control the money supply:
Check out www.prosperityuk.com...
If you think this is impossible, Guernsey, a small island in the English Channel has generous tax allowances, a flat income tax rate of 20 per cent, no VAT, no capital gains tax, no council tax and is one of the most prosperous places on earth with a very high standard of living.
I think it's high time we had a grown up debate about taxation in the UK but sadly given the intelligence levels of many U.K. politicians I'm not hopeful of one.
When the Tories were in office they twice messed up the economy in the early 80s and early 90s with high interest rates thus causing a hole in the nation's public finances which had to be filled by higher taxes (by about 2 per cent of GDP in John Major's government). Gordon Brown has increased taxation massively, the average pensioner is now having to fork out about a third of their pension on council tax and many people have been sucked into the higher rate of tax. Gordon Brown and his Labour lefites are always talking about the need to abolish poverty. Why doesn't he take the low paid out of tax altogether, doesn't he realise that taxes impoverish people? And look at how the billions he has allocated for health and education have disappeared down a bureacratic black hole! There are currently 8 administrators for every nurse in the NHS and more bureacrats than beds! The taxpayer's alliance booklet on government waste recently highlighted about £53 billion worth of potential savings by trimming the size of government.
And why is spending so much on the NHS such a good thing if it means that so many people are ill and have to be treated (usually by horrendous medicine with appalling side effects) in the first place?
Finally, low taxes tend to lead to greater tax revenue because they engender greater economic activity. Also, can we please have interest-free banking, abolish usury as it's immoral and economically damaging? All the world's religions forbid usury and rightly so! It would transform Britain and the world. Interest on loans and mortgages is the biggest form of taxation! They are also inflationary as they add to the cost of business.