Oh look how little the EU and foreign aid cost us! What a jolly good government we have!

There are articles in the papers�about the new tax statements we will be sent. Apparently, there will be two main parts� – a letter laying out our earnings and tax paid (click to see more clearly)

and a page showing how our tax money was spent (click to see more clearly)

At first sight, this looks great. Finally, we’re seeing where our tax money goes. Or are we?

While�we should�welcome this great leap forward in transparency, I worry that it will give many people the wrong impression about how much our Government really costs us. For example, from this sample letter to the average earner, it looks like they’re ‘only’ paying �842 a year for the NHS, �321 for debt interest, a modest �40 for the EU and a trifling �25 to overseas aid. Seeing this, most people will probably shrug and think something like, ‘well, �40 for the EU and �25 for overseas aid – that isn’t really too much, is it?’

Now, I realise of course that people with above average earnings will have bigger numbers on their new tax statements. But these new “open, transparent” tax statements only cover how our income tax and National Insurance contributions are spent. However, the Government collects and spends an awful lot more than�just income tax and National Insurance.

So for example, with a budget of �105bn a year and 30 million taxpayers, the NHS actually costs each taxpayer �3,500 a year (not the �842 per taxpayer�on the average earner’s tax statement)�which is��1,693 for every man, woman and child in the country.�Similarly our debt interest of around �45bn is really costing each taxpayer �1,500 a year (not the �321 on a typical new tax statement)�- that’s��726 for every man, woman and child. As for the EU – at �19bn a year, that’s �633 a year from each taxpayer (not the modest �40 on the average tax statement)�which comes to��306 for every man, woman and child in the country. And foreign aid – at �11bn a year, that’s �367 per taxpayer per year (not the trifling �25 per taxpayer per year on the average tax statement)� – that’s a massive��177�for every�person living in Britain�going into the pockets of murderous African kleptocrats and utterly corrupt Indian and Pakistani politicians and bureaucrats.

When you take the total figures per taxpayer or even per person, suddenly things like the EU and foreign aid don’t look so cheap any more.

So, I don’t know. Will the new tax statements really be open and transparent as the Government will claim? Or will they give most ordinary people a completely false and misleading picture of how much our rulers and their free-spending fantasies really cost us?

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