So started a thread re trail centre car parks and paying or not, one reply and a maybe a troll or flippant comment which was

I avoid paying for parking everywhere. My taxes have already paid for all these government funded projects so I begrudge paying twice.

Got me thinking does the great and wonderful public know what is paid for by taxes?

Coke and hookers mostly?

I’m quite refreshed by the Keith Vaz approach PP. Equal opportunities for all when it comes to supplying coke and hookers services.

Its restored my faith in an egalitarian society. Come one, come all, so to speak

Most trail centres are in the countryside – more likely to be hillbilly heroin, isn’t it??

Rachel (once made a batch of hillbilly heroin)

Lots of it comes to Wales. I’d like to thankyou on behalf of a grateful nation for our lovely roads.

I think the correct answer is that most people expect Swedish standards of public services while paying American levels of taxes

My wages. 😀

Lots of it comes to Wales. I’d like to thankyou on behalf of a grateful nation for our lovely roads.

They still can’t spell slow properly though, keep miss-spelling it as “Araf”.

That’s odd as I heard they pay for my wages too monkeysfeet.

No

Should the public know and have the option to understand where their taxes go?

I received a breakdown of where my taxes go a few months ago. Scotland for ref.

One of the papers always produces a huge pie graph every budget and you can drill down quiet far to see what it spend on what (Pensions, NHS, Debt Payment and Defence mostly) but it only covers national taxation (income tax, corp tax, VAT, etc).

If you want to know who built your local TC, who maintains it and who takes the parking fees you need to look a bit deeper – it varies at lot.

In South Wales at least the Carpark fees invariably go to the local council, the trails were built by various funds over the years, but most recently by the Cognation Project which was part funded by the EU, part by Welsh Government and by some local councils. They’re maintained by Natural Resources Wales (who took over from the FC which doesn’t exist in Wales any more).

I think those pie charts were quite quickly shown to be ‘misleading’ at best, i.e. some of the category headings such as ‘welfare’ covered a very broad cross section such as Firefighter’s pensions etc.

But in answer to the OP, no.

I always thought it would be a great Private Eye feature, a fortnightly diagram of ‘where does the money go’. At least you could trust them, sort of.

Best we all follow Amazon’s example and not pay what we should. Works well in Greece…

Should the public know and have the option to understand where their taxes go?

Its never been easier to find out. But I think most actually people enjoy not knowing.

EU innit

Sept for road tax, that def payz for da roads

Welsh stuff got some funding via the EU. Our taxes would have been part of the money that we send to the EU and then get back on schemes like these.

Once we’re out, that’s the end of that. Of course we could fund them direct but there’s very little chance money would be spent on these projects. With EU funding it had to be specifically spent on rural development projects. Local government and councils just piss the money up the wall, then complain they don’t have enough money and put up parking charges.

cloudnine – Member 
Best we all follow Amazon’s example and not pay what we should.

They’re just paying what they legally should, and so should everyone, and not a penny more.

“No man in the country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so to arrange his legal relations to his business or property as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel in his stores. The Inland Revenue is not slow, and quite rightly, to take every advantage which is open to it under the Taxing Statutes for the purposes of depleting the taxpayer’s pocket. And the taxpayer is in like manner entitled to be astute to prevent, so far as he honestly can, the depletion of his means by the Inland Revenue”
Lord Clyde – 1929

Bearing in mind how wastefully tax revenues are spent, it’s madness to just cough up lots of money on some moral obligation and then see the council spend on massive waste of money schemes that seem to line the pockets of the councillors who have an interest in the schemes, and benefits no one else.

Its dead easy and they even post this piechart to your house but looks like no one opened the envelope. Your taxes went on that too.

Most of it goes on pensions and health. The welfare is deceiving as it includes in-work benefits and the majority of us (64%) receive something back through ‘welfare’.

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/budget_pie_ukgs.php

There’s also an issue between capital and revenue. A trail centre might have been built with a grant, donation, loan etc. (capital) in the first place but it wears out and needs to be maintained (revenue) thats where the car park charges come in.

immigrants and overseas aid…

FE gets **** all money these days, going to have to be self sufficient soon, that petition to save forests didn’t really solve it its just being done quietly now.

Bearing in mind how wastefully tax revenues are spent,

is one opinion, others may vary. its not a law of nature from which to hypothecate an argument.

I know my road tax goes on building and fixing the roads.

The correct answer is most tax goes to the Treasury who spend it as they see fit. There are some local taxes like council tax and they get p*ssed up the wall on corrupt housing and shopping developments, sorry I mean are spent in productive ways.

coincidentally this has just hit my twitter feed

https://fullfact.org/economy/guide-economy-public-spending/

I think most people don’t have a clue, which is why it is very easy for politicians or tabloids to stir up the public by simply stating
“We spend {X} billion of taxpayer’s money on benefits/the NHS/disability allowance/the EU/BBC/OAPs every {select time scale to produce suitably large but easily quotable figure}.”

All numbers sound pretty large when you don’t give them as a percentage of total spend.