The moral duty to pay tax

Polly Toynbee has kindly offered some advice to the beleaguered Chancellor; this being the tipping point at which it now becomes impossible not to feel sorry for him.

In her latest rant, Ms Toynbee raises the issue of the social responsibility of paying taxes and, in doing so, trucks out all the same old tired commentary about the business community having a moral duty to pay tax, and not even to avoid paying tax let alone evade it. Not wanting to stop there, businessmen will be chuffed to hear they also have a duty to be more philanthropic. Unsurprisingly, given that he must have long since grown tired of being laughed at, Alistair Darling chose not to follow any of Ms Toynbee's advice when giving his speech to the CBI yesterday.

Her views may, indeed, be worthy of discussion, albeit by persons more knowledgeable than Ms Toynbee, but one point struck us as noteworthy, and particularly as the question she poses is the very last question which any government of modern times, and least of all her New Labour mates, would want to have to answer.

The question posed is ... "[why] a generation of voters has never heard the basic reasons why they pay tax, and why it is the most necessary and honourable part of citizenship". Indeed.

Might it be because when a government reminds its citizens why they have to pay tax, it fixes in the minds of those citizens that they also have the right to hold the government to account for how it then spends the money (our money !). And somehow, a government telling its citizens they have a moral duty to pay tax only for those citizens to see the money spent on: computer contract over-runs; tax credit fraudsters; shoring up defunct banks; generous donations to the PFI sector; and much more besides, would not be the smartest of moves even by this current government's standards.

No, it is far better and safer for any government to eschew all this moral duty malarkey in favour of a nice simple, and largely unquestioned, "tax and spend". Or should that be "extract and waste" ?

At least, on the plus side, the Chancellor can be safe in the knowledge that this is one of Ms Toynbee's bright ideas which is definitely not going to be picked up on by the Opposition; who, themselves, are not short of members who do not even see it as their duty to pay tax whilst being peers of the realm.