Well now, folks, here's a first! We've received this contribution from, of all people, a Tax Man. And believe me, he's REALLY grumpy - there's more where this came from, and frankly by comparison the GOS is just an amateur ....
Benefit Scroungers. What is it with these people?
Do they not have the self-respect to earn a living for themselves when they are perfectly capable?
I watch Little Britain not because it is funny (It isn't - GOS) but because it is sad to think that this is the most accurate representation of Britain to be seen on TV today. Where I live there are two estates that are full of little Vicki Pollards and people like the bloke in the wheel chair in Little Britain.
Some girls have made a profession of breeding to get a new home. If they don't have a home, they have a sprog and get a flat for free. They want a bigger place? They have another sprog and get themselves a 3-bedroom house. Want more cash? Have another sprog. Of course they all have different fathers - that maximises maintenance payments.
One thing that made me laugh (or should I say made my blood boil) is my local council. They spent £2 million revamping a multi-storey car park in one of these estates. What for? The average age of the tenants in the area is 15 and virtually no one is old enough to drive - not legally, anyway.
And to do it, they used our hard-earned taxes - the revenue I and my colleagues collect in the face of the abuse we receive from the public and the media - courtesy, apparently, of our Gold Plated Pensions and Ground Breaking Pay. In fact it's the Senior Civil Service and Ministers the media should be focusing on - they're the ones who get the Gold Plated Pensions and Ground Breaking Pay, not me and my colleagues.
We are among the lowest paid in the country. If I went to work in the private sector doing what I do now, I could earn 3 or 4 times my present salary. But then there's the question of morality: would it be right for me to abuse my knowledge and help people avoid tax? From a moral standpoint I couldn't do it. So I put up with the low pay and try to catch the tax-evaders and tax-avoiders - they are little more than thieves in my eyes.
The GOS says: There's a big difference between benefit scroungers and tax-avoiders, though, isn't there? Benefits are money given to people who need it because they're ill, or injured, or very poor. Anyone who takes it when they're not ill or injured or very poor is stealing.
Tax, on the other hand, is a rip off. The idea of tax is fair enough. If the government said "It's going to cost umpteen £billion to run the country next year and we've all got to chip in, so send us your three-and-twopence please", one wouldn't mind. But instead they've built up an immensely complex system that we can't understand, in which every single thing we do in our lives is penalised. Going shopping for food, using money you've already paid tax on? Pay a tax. Getting there by car, on which you paid tax when you bought it? Pay some more tax. Going on holiday, using money you've already ..... (you know the rest!)? Pay a tax. Dying? That's taxed too. In the past they taxed silly things like windows and the right to sleep with your bride on your wedding night (yes, really - it was called "lex primae noctis"). And not a lot's changed - there's been some publicity lately about a proposal to tax the view from your bedroom window, by increasing the council tax on houses in pretty places. And the only people who can consistently escape these burdens are the wealthy.
Sorry, GOTM, but by enforcing this ridiculous system, you're doing the Devil's work. So hie you off to the private sector, earn yourself a decent wage and stop worrying about morality. The GOS spent most of his working life as a teacher, and paid 6% of his wages into a fund so that he could have a small pension when he retired. When he dies, Mrs.GOS will only get half of it - the government will rub its hands gleefully and keep the rest. And she'll probably have to sell the house to pay the Inheritance Tax, too, and live out her days in a caravan somewhere. Where's the morality in that?
Oh, by the way, local councils always make your blood boil. I think that's what they're for. I can't see they have any other purpose, for God's sake ...
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