The Wardman Wire

A cracking example of a category error in the comments at Labour Home - money that doesn’t go through the Government is not paid by taxpayers:

“The cost of ID cards is only a few million at the moment, so cancelling it won’t yield much savings. As for your mooted £5bn cost - only if the taxpayer bears the entire cost of ID cards. If people buy them in the style of passports, the cost to the taxpayer drops. As they will be voluntary (as passports are voluntary), I believe there will be a charge. It’s only if they become compulsory that you have to make them free. “

Reply:

(Leaving aside the revealing problem of a philosophy that assumes expenditure outside government doesn’t actually cost the taxpayer anything)

Logically strictly accurate, if you divide the population into “taxpayers” and non-taxpayers (ignoring indirect taxes which everyone pays).

The cost to the government drops, and the overall cost to the people stays exactly the same but is partly redistributed from those who earn enough to be in the direct tax net to those who do not pay taxes.

So we would have a poll tax on the non-direct taxpayers, and the direct taxpayers paying somewhat less.

I don’t think it’s a good idea for Gordon Brown’s administration to put a poll tax on the less well off as a way of paying for an expensive white elephant.

Ouch.