Quote: ROBINSON "Take smoking as an example. 25 years ago, people smoked in front of kids, in public places and it wasn't deemed a massive problem. It's only a prolonged campaign, and gradual withdrawal of advertising that has got us to where we are now. And it will take another 25 years to get to the 'ideal' stage.
So of course, the first problem is that a government gets five years. It's not enough. The smoking issue is one that both major parties agree on, so it's implementation has worked and both parties have persevered with it. Sadly that can't be the way with everything, where fundamental disagreements fuel an attitude (to some) of digging your heels in when the party you don't like suggests something.'"
I would argue the biggest change in the attitude to smoking was brought about by legislation. That is the ban on smoking in public places. Prior to that all the advertising bans and so on didn't do a great deal to stop smoking. Restaurants, pubs and even offices were cloudy places to be despite the hands off approach which basically just said smoking is bad for you. I grew up with both parents smoking. My Mum for all of her 89 years and my Dad for some of his 85 and when I started work there was no need for the smokers to leave the office for a drag. The biggest change I have noticed in smoking is as a direct result of legislation.
So if you are putting the history of smoking in this country forward as a kind of example where education results in a gradual change for the better I think you have instead highlighted the fact that to really make a difference quickly the game changer was legislation not education.
Quote: ROBINSON " - Tax. Get rid of tax codes, and introduce a very simple sliding scale. If you earn X, you pay X. The onus should also be on the employee to make payment, not the employer. It cannot in this day and age be too difficult to compel employers to calculate wages online, which sends relevant info to HMRC, who then take the employee's tax by direct debit FROM the employee a set amount of time afterwards. Again, this is as much about instilling responsibility in the general public, and making people take responsibility for their own affairs.
- National Insurance. As above, however the employer should still make their contribution as they do now. A concession should be offered, in that a rebate should be available to the employer if they take on an apprentice, or young staff member who receives some kind of formal training.'"
The idea tax an NI should be collected from the employee via direct debit is ludicrously impractical. That is tens of millions of direct debit mandates HMRC would have to keep up to date instead of dealing with the (far fewer) employers making single payments to HMRC. God knows how it would work with an increasingly casual based workforce as well.
In fact what we want is an extension of P.A.Y.E to everyone. It's quite clear whenever possible people who don't receive their salary through P.A.Y.E are as quick to spot their own mini tax avoidance schemes as anyone who has been vilified for doing this on a large scale such as Jimmy Carr.
P.A.Y.E and the resulting P60 is also how the government judges your entitlement to things like the level of University Maintenance loan your kids can apply for (just one example of many). I know people who were outside of of P.A.Y.E who were not rich by any means who still managed to create a picture of virtually no tax paid so their kid even got a grant never mind a loan and tuition fees paid. Outside of P.A.Y.E it is far too easy to hide income from the tax man. I am sure tax avoidance would go through the roof if what you suggest was implemented.
Also getting rid of tax codes is also impractical. What does a sliding scale mean? It is just in effect many more tax codes! I am sure you know the amount of tax paid by an employee in any one month is based on their total income to date in the tax year and that the amount of tax is basically read off income tax tables for a particular tax code.
That means unless you have a basis for the employees tax liability (their tax code) you can't construct the tax tables. The only thing you could do is collect all the tax in one go at the end of the tax year when you knew the employees full tax liability. That would starve the government of tax revenue during the year. Taking some tax off employees as the year progresses with a view to sorting it out at the end when the correct liability was known would be a nightmare as well.
Finally your comment about not taxing people to death. Our tax rates are some of the lowest around already. The problem is we don't manage to collect it all from both individuals and companies. If we did we might not have such a great big bloody whole in the public finances. So instead of strange schemes such as those you suggest I'd say devoting effort to plugging the tax gap would go a long way to sorting the public finances out.