Statement of Your Tax Spending

Now here's a brilliant idea – one that I have heard mooted before, but this time it looks like it could well happen. Each year, taxpayers already receive a statement of their tax; but in the interests of transparency, why can't it include a breakdown of how that tax money is being spent by the Government? ConHome has the story.

Ben Gummer's proposal to provide an itemised list of amounts taken from each person's own tax is a good one, and – as Guido has already picked up – it will show just how much each of us is paying towards others' hand-outs, which would probably result in even greater public support for the Government's benefits cap policy (that support is already over two-thirds, at 69%).

Guido also asks the question: how will Labour react? As he says, it'd be difficult for them to oppose such a move, especially after all those claims about "trins-pay-rinse-ee" that Gordon Brown frequently made, echoed by his Labour colleagues then and since. This is going to be difficult for them, as one thing Labour do not want is for us to find out just how much of our money they had arranged to pump into meeting the vast welfare/benefits bill that they had allowed and encouraged to expand hugely during their years in office.

Here's a specimen statement (PDF) clearly showing how much of the tax paid by "Peter Giles" went on each of more than three dozen topics under twelve main headings. As statements are being sent out already, and the additional information would be calculated by computer, there is no additional cost to providing this information – perhaps one extra page per person, in practice, and that could be printed on the other side of the same piece of paper, so a fraction of a penny in additional toner (and a few milli-seconds of extra computer time) is all it would cost.

I like this idea a lot, and hope it goes ahead and comes into effect reasonably soon – perhaps starting from April of next year, with those first statements covering the period from April 2012 to end-March 2013. That way, over a few years, we shall all be able to see the proportion of our tax money going on unproductive uses being reduced, starting with what is more or less what Labour bequeathed to the nation, but changing quite noticeably during the following few years.

In other words, we should be able to judge the effectiveness of Government policies in this area in fairly short order, and most importantly by the time of the next General Election, by which time the trend should be fairly obvious. Overall, it's a winner!