What Does the State Do With My Money?

Every year, here in the UK, the Inland Revenue sends me its tax bill. It tells me what I have to pay and how this amount has been calculated. I am told that for seven years I have to keep all my receipts and any documentation relating to my incomings and outgoings, just in case the Revenue decides that it wants to look at them.

What annoys me is this. How come they don't send me a breakdown of what they're doing with my money?

For example, if I pay 5,000 in taxes, I would like to know how much of it is going on education, how much of it is going to pay for defence, and how much is going toward social security benefits.

Breaking down my 5,000 into 15 or 20 areas like this would empower me. It would empower everyone to know where their money was going.

By doing this, we could all see, every year, what went up and what went down. We could see how much we pay for this and how much for that. We could then vote at elections with more knowledge about the issues and so we would come to better conclusions.

And this would be such a simple thing to do. A tiny little subroutine in the Revenue's computer program could easily apply the relevant percentages for government expenditure to my tax invoice and print out the figures showing me where my money was being spent.

So why doesn't the government do this?

When we hear our politicians talking about millions spent here and billions spent there, it doesn't mean anything to us. The numbers are too large and we all pay different amounts. And so we learn nothing about what it really means to us – the taxpayers.

The government could have such a system in operation within a month. A few lines of computer program just before the invoice is actually printed, and away we go, it would print a breakdown for us. We would then all know where our money was going.

And this really would inform and empower us.

1342 for education. 746 for defence. 1768 for social security benefits.

Knowledge is power – which, presumably, is why the government doesn't want to give us the breakdowns.

But I would like to know the figures that apply to me every year. I would like to know what they are doing with MY money. MY 5,000.

I think that I have a right to know.

Don't you?

August 7, 2001