Raise Taxes, National Health Service

 

Duty Paid
Ralph Hedley (1848-1913)
Photo Credit: Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens. [CC BY-NC]

UK plutocrats rank proudly fifth in the world for mega-wealth, but our poor have 20% less than the poor of Slovenia.

Britain has got a lot poorer, partly due to economic own goals such as Brexit. There is less of everything following "the most dramatic period of spending cuts in modern history", so taxes must rise unless voters are ready to see public services disintegrate further. That's the choice - and the sharp message from Paul Johnson, Institute for Fiscal Studies director, in his new book, Follow the Money. He has killer facts: no politician dare challenge IFS figures. His analysis of our warped tax system, riddled with reliefs for rich people and penalties for the rest, offers irrefutably fairer options.

"Government's dirty secret is that it chooses not to do the right thing," he writes. That's through fear of voters (he has the advantage of not needing to woo them or confront the Daily Mail.) Vastly more money could be raised by squeezing rich people and ending their tax reliefs - but he warns that truly economy-changing sums to invest in long-term growth and public services mean asking everyone to pay more...

How much more should we pay in tax? That's up to us, because "there is nothing in economics that says we can't have a bigger state," Johnson writes. Look how similar countries that raise far more tax to buy far better services, while investing in growth, succeed better than us: France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands all raise and spend more, pulling away from us at a faster pace as we sink down the G7 league in growth. Incomes in France grew in a decade by 34% and in Germany by 27%, while typical UK income dropped by 2%, according to the Resolution Foundation.

In no particular order, look at our erratic tax system. Take council tax, now almost as outrageous as the poll tax it replaced: with its cap on top rates it defies every rule of tax justice, so zillionaire mansions pay just three times more than the humblest bedsit...

(Polly Toynbee, The Guardian, 2023)

If the country wants better services it has to pay for them. For the common good, the more you earn the more tax you should pay. There should be no tax relief or tax avoidance schemes for those who earn vast sums of money and council tax should be reformed so that people with large houses pay much more than people with more modest homes.

... The question I ponder is why the universal egalitarian principle of the NHS, held in such esteem by so many, rarely spills over into the other good things the state can provide for everyone. Why aren't we more Scandanavian in our willingness to pay the taxes that would give us a public realm with better education, arts, leisure centres, parks, preserved heritage; with great transport, fine public housing, a decent social security net and Sure Start centres for all families?

The mundane answer may be that everyone, of all ages and incomes, fears they might need an ambulance to A&E if they fall off a ladder or keel over with a heart attack, whereas only a certain number of people at any one time appreciate other public services. But Labour could tap into that Scandanavian sentiment, as it becomes ever clearer that the current plight of the NHS is due to profound social failures beyond its doors. The NHS is the last resort, the repository for the effects of neglect in everything else - from dirty air, to children in mould-ridden homes, to inadequate food. As life expectancy falls, research by Michael Marmot, professor of epidemiology at University College London, shows that healing the NHS requires healing the worst inequalities...

(Polly Toynbee, The Guardian, 2023)