THE cigarette butt landed on my shoulder. “Oi-eugh-hey!” was my articulate rejoinder as I pedalled off. “Out the way [I’ll cut the noun] and pay your [I’ll similarly cut the adjective] road tax,” was the rejoinder of the fag throwing gentleman in the van next to me.
White fury ensued. “There’s no such thing as road tax!” You will not be a cyclist for long before a driver tells you you’ve no right to be on the road because you haven’t paid any road tax, either to your face or in a snippy comment on Facebook.
It’s a myth, of course. Vehicle excise duty, as road tax properly is, is based on the vehicle’s emissions. Bikes don’t emit. I wonder how this particular class of driver feels about low emission cars not paying any VED either. Must be bamboozling.
Road tax is merely a snappy nickname. It is, however, inaccurate and distracting. But it’s not uncommon for unpopular fiscal policies to be popularly named the “something tax”.
Bedroom tax - not a tax. The dementia tax - not a tax, not really about dementia.
A shorthand for new policies is useful in planting them in the popular consciousness and directing attention towards them. It makes the assumption, though, that people are broadly informed about the actual issue. It also makes the finer details easier to miss. The dementia tax conversation has focused on the cheek of the Tories suggesting those with property and savings worth more than £100,000 will pay for their own care. There are issues with the policy other than whether people are willing or able to cough up for care if and when they need it.
The Tory manifesto, for example, also pledges that family members caring for a relative will be entitled to a year’s leave from work to look after them. So, the suggestion is that we remove the burden of care from the state and allow people to lose 12 months of income in order to sticky plaster the cracks.
The broader issue is that tax has a dirty name. When a policy is problematic or distasteful, we label it a tax, even when it isn’t. The council tax freeze lasted a damaging length of time because political leaders shy away from tax increases as sure fire vote loser. Confusing fiscal nicknames that use it as a shorthand for “bad” stop tax being understood and accepted.
What tax needs is an image overhaul, a rehabilitation. Taxation means a compulsory confiscation of property and a corresponding loss of control over what that property is then used for. You can see why people balk.
Tax is despised unless it is big business or a famous face avoiding paying it, then we level accusations of greed and selfishness. See Starbucks and Gary Barlow.
Paying tax means being a successful, active member of society. Criticisms of inheritance tax, as one example, revolve around a desire to pass wealth on to children in order to assist them in living a decent life. The logic of this begins to unravel when you accept your children are not and cannot be more important than the society they live in and they will not have as decent a life as they might if you don’t invest in the environment around them.
Of course we should examine and question the tax we are expected to pay. That’s another part of being a successful member of society.
Taxing is a synonym for onerous. Tax shouldn’t be. Tax is a privilege.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here