26th February 2018

How much is that doggie in the window?

This HMRC document hit my desk last week. What a great idea, it shows how your ‘hard earned’ is spent by the state on your behalf. 

Out of a tax take of £19,302 the welfare spend is more that the amount taken for servicing the national debt, education and defence combined. And they are the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th highest spends.

Welfare accounts in this case for almost 25% of this total tax gathering for 2016/17. 

I used to hear a lot about hard pressed families in the lead up to the last couple of elections and I think there was a strong political point to make, but the point set the wrong thought processes off.

If this taxpayer is anything to go by, those hard-pressed families could be in such a situation because 25% of each taxable element of their working day is spent on providing welfare of some sort to recipients various and unknown. 

Perhaps in the brave new world of disclosure, this document should give a breakdown subset of how this money is spent, where it is spent, who spends it and on what exactly.

There are some other very interesting perspectives thrown up in this document. The last in particular around the UK contribution to the EU budget. It is just £135, some 0.7% of the total bill.

I was/am very keen to see Brexit actually happen. I doubt it ever will. 

But instead of sending buses around the country with messages on the side illustrating how much could be made available to add to the £3,918 from this tax bill on the NHS in the run up to the referendum, voting may have been somewhat different if the amount each taxpayer actually contributed to the EU was set out just like this.

I await another statement for 2017/18 that I assume will show how much has actually been spent from this income tax breakdown on Brexit?

Sadly I fear we will never know.

Panacea Comment