Saturday
(2)While I am inclined to think that flat taxes are not as easy in practice as they are cracked up to be, and I would in any case prefer to scrap personal income tax altogether, a radically simplified tax system would benefit everyone but tax-collectors and accountants. (Even the holy skoolznospitles, and the policemen doing £80,000 of overtime a year, would approve of more net revenue from the same tax burden.)
However, Revenue officials in Britain are trying to censor even the discussion of flat tax:
According to yesterday's account in the Daily Telegraph
The original version of secret work by officials posted on the Treasury website - after freedom of information request - pooh-poohed the claims of flat tax advocates as "misleading".But large parts of the work had been removed. The complete version reveals that most, but not all, of the elements which were blacked out present compelling arguments in favour of the flat tax.
Some 'freedom of information'!
The Telegraph concluded that since such political excisions must have been at the orders of the Chancellor, Gordon Brown MP, but today this is officially denied in a letter from the permanent civil servant who heads HM Treasury:
The Chancellor had never seen any version of the released documents and no minister had any involvement in the decisions regarding their release. To suggest otherwise is completely false.
Should we conclude that the elected Government is being kept in the dark about its policy options too?
Next time someone tells me that Tony Blair does not run the country, Gordon Brown does, I reserve the right to be skeptical. Government by officials, for officials, subject to no law but Parkinson's, is nearer the mark.
Maybe the report was seen leaving the building inside an unseasonably thick binder...
Posted by Sylvain Galineau at August 20, 2005 04:38 PM
Only 2 surprising things about this:
- that some idiot though the censorship would actually work, in this day-and-age, and
- how far the idea of flat taxes has come in so short a time.
Posted by Julian Morrison at August 20, 2005 07:38 PM
Thank-you slowjoe; that is an improvement.
I strongly recommend the trackback blog entry by Martin Stabe on the intricacies of the Freedom of Information Act.
(It hasn't worked out quite as Freedom of Information proponents expected, I suspect.)
Posted by guy herbert at August 21, 2005 07:18 AM
Yes; though it is not quite the same sort of thing as the US Act, and we don't have a "public domain".
It was one of the civil libertarian fetishes of the liberal left (along with "human rights", "devolution", "constitutional reform" and stronger anti-discrimination measures) nominally indulged by the Blair administration, but that in practice has done nothing to weaken the hand of the state or add to individual liberties. Unfortunately there are quite a lot of people around of the Charter-88-ish variety who are label-shoppers and have not grasped how much they are betrayed.
We also have an Official Secrets Act and official bodies use the law of confidence (which is very strong in Britain) aggressively to protect material that has no relationship to official secrets. The official idea of what's confidential seems to be rather more extensive than companies normally worry about. And then there is the glorious "voluntary" DA notice system that ensures the mainstream press doesn't report on security and defence matters without seeking "advice".
Yes. We have a Freedom of Information Act.
Posted by guy herbert at August 21, 2005 10:05 AM
"Constitutional reform"? I've been told UK does not have a constitution. I really am ignorant about our comrades across the pond.
Posted by Ivan at August 21, 2005 11:33 PM
Ivan, this might help.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/british_constitution1.htm(Link)
Posted by Midwesterner at August 22, 2005 01:03 PM
Sorry, should have been this one.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/british_constitution.htm(Link)
Posted by Midwesterner at August 22, 2005 01:06 PM
The tax and benefit system most definitely needs simplyfying. I would support a flat tax as long as it comes with a full citizen's income. Otherwise you are just arguing for mass inequality and poverty. Income Tax is the great redistributor. Without it you are just making the rich richer at the expense of public services and/or the poor. Public Services benefit the poor the most!
Posted by Neil Harding at August 28, 2005 08:00 PM
