I don’t pay a lot of tax. I don’t have a fancy accountant to find me loop holes, I just don’t earn enough.
As a freelancer I have an annual tax bill. I pay it off all in one go and so I know exactly how much I pay in taxes. It is something I am happy to do and would even pay more if asked to do so, until recently that is…
Recently I have received my 2020/21 tax bill, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t come to a whole lot, and yet I have always thought that I am making a contribution to society. I am paying for someone to get healthcare, increasing the safety on our roads with better policing and making sure that children are receiving a good education. Or that’s the way I felt until fairly recently.
With more and more stories coming out about corruption and the current you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours culture, cheese and wine parties, and Friday wine being a regular feature at Downing Street, I have begun to wonder just how much of my tax payers money is going to somewhere of value, or just literally being spent on high end vino?! I bet they don’t get what’s on offer at Tesco either. Personally, I have started to question why I should continue to work hard (I’m one of these hard working individuals they keep talking about after all) to contribute such a small amount that when totted up is potentially being thrown away on such trivial and meaningless things.
It makes me feel that there’s an awful lot of us at the lower pay grade level that are working hard and often to contribute relatively little, when there’s incredibly well off people making an incredible amount of money and paying very little back. There’s folks like that literally in our own government and they would rather protect their own than look after us small fry, expensing whatever they can for us down the chain to cover. Somehow it has got to change.
Personally I try to keep my own rates reasonable, and good value for money.
I try to go above and beyond for my clients, going out of my way to accommodate where possible and doing the odd few hours extra here and there, for valued customers. As a small business owner I can guarantee we’ve all done it. On the other hand, we’ve all been told it would be good for visibility or asked to donate a product as a raffle prize or we’ll pay you if we like it (these are real life examples from small businesses I know!) which I can’t imagine being to the liking of after dinner speakers for that kind of (free….) money.
That said, I really enjoy being a small business owner and have grown a client base that I love working with on a regular basis. I will throw in freebies (often without their knowledge) for them as we’ve built up a relationship over time, and I happily work for them in order to pay my taxes. I only wish that the same values applied further up the chain with the people whose responsibility it is to spend my (our) tax payers money for the good of our world rather than on boozy dos and blonde hair dye.