March 13th, 2012
The Wish Tax
In a surprise move George Osborne has asked me to draft the key component of next week’s Budget. I’ve come up with the Wish Tax as it seems to capture the mood of contemporary political thinking. A simple tax – it works like this. If I see something that I don’t like then there’ll be tax to pay. This can be anything from tax dodging tycoons and greedy bankers right the way through to people who have more children than feels ‘about right’. Dogs that poo in the street, people who hold loud parties (although obviously not parties that I’m at), thoughtless drivers, pigeons, blue badge abusers, whingers, whiners and moaners – if I don’t approve there’ll be tax to pay – at my discretion.
I suspect my fellow accountants and HMRC officials will complain loudly that the Wish Tax is totally unworkable in practice, lacks any thought, clarity or structure and will leave people with no idea whatsoever as to how much tax they’re likely to pay. But they’d better not complain too much. There’s a tax for that.
