23 Sep 2004

Tax with Nectar cards?

For hardcore pacifists having to pay for war and for preparations for war is morally indefensible. It’s perfectly rational to believe that peaceful conflict resolution may be the harder path, but that going to war is something we just have to get over, like slavery.

Its one of the strongest arguments for a degree of hypothecation in taxes.

Imagine the opposite - that supermarkets worked like elected government. We’d all elect a food supplier, then - say - have Tesco delivering bags on your doorstep for five years. Inevitably it would be the things other people liked - mushy white bread, plastic sausage tubes filled with mechanically extracted mush, fruit air freighted in from Kenya or misleadingly stamped as grown in Israel. They’d direct debit you arbitrary amounts. They might subject you to a means test, but wouldnt ever enquire if you were vegetarian or if broccoli gave you wind. After five years everyone would be so fed up they’d vote in, say, Sainsbury. We’d get five years of own brand baked beans, oven chips and Sunny Delight instead.

Ideal e-enabled government would make paying tax easier. It could also start to make it more expressive. The ideal Inland Revenue would send you a precompleted tax return, as they do already in Sweden and I think Denmark, with a polite letter.

It might say

“Dear taxpayer, Here, here from our highly confidential and well-protected database, is what we reckon you earned from salary, dividends, share sales, rent etc. We believe you’re entitled to the following allowances for being extra tall, helping probationers and having seven children. This pleasantly low sum is therefore what we believe you owe HM Treasury. If that’s all correct there’s no need to any further action, other than to indicate here how you would like to see the discretionary part of your taxes spent.”

You could then uncheck the spend on things that kill people, and select instead things like public transport, community policing, drug treatment centres, and renewable energy.

Two weeks later the Chancellor takes the management summary to the PM and shows the all too predictable trend.

There might follow a difficult phone call to the White House.

“George, remember we said we were with you all the way on Iraq? Well, the numbers just came in and the taxpayers just won’t buy it.” “Gee, that’s terrible. We were all ready to go. Did you give them the dossier?” “Yes, we had it emailed to everyone but it didnt work. Perhaps they thought it was spam.” “Did you have that fancy tattoo and air show and show them all the new weapons?” “Of course, but they voted to put them straight in the expanded Imperial War Museum.” “Weird.” “Yeah, sorry George.” Clunk.

Obviously we elect people to decide priorities for the nation,and to some extent they make difficult decision based on spooky information that can’t be generally shared. But it is morally objectionable to extort money from people for purposes that in all conscience they find intolerable.

What might be discretionary would be a legitimate area for vigorous public debate. But feedback in the form of diverted flows of money is a lot more expressive than opinion polls and endless chattering and the odd vote. And ideal e-enabled government could make that easy and fun to do.

Posted by William Heath on 23/09/04 at 5:15pm
Categories · "What do we want?" · Across the Board
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Ideal Government

Let's say what we want from e-enabled government. Let's observe government first-hand. Let's say "Wouldn't It Be Better If" (WIBBI). Become an ethnographer of bureaucracy today! It beats getting frustrated with public services.

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23 Sep 2004

Tax with Nectar cards?

Ideal Government

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23 Sep 2004

Tax with Nectar cards?

Ideal Government

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