The Guardian view on paying tax: a contribution to the common good | Editorial
Charlotte Church says she would happily pay tax at 60% or 70% if it would protect public services. Three cheers for the Welsh singer who defends herself against sneers about champagne socialism by describing herself as "more of a prosecco girl myself". In the wake of an election dominated by the need to cut public spending and won by a government that intends tax increases to contribute a mere 2% in the battle to balance the books, it is time to defend the virtue of the better-off paying more tax.
One of the conceits of government is that income tax is a temporary imposition, even though it is 200 years since the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo last resulted in income tax actually being abolished. It was reinstated in 1842, and has been renewed every year since, yet the impression remains that it is a temporary imposition on the citizen, required only to spread the burden of some pressing national project, acceded to reluctantly as part of the obligation of the rich. As the great Liberal leader William Gladstone, no enthusiast, described it in one of his epic budget speeches as the Crimean war broke out in 1854, income tax was an "engine of gigantic power for great national purposes".
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