"So, the tax money goes into a general revenue pool. If say 5 million people are happy to have some of this money go towards foreign aid and another say 5 million are not .... then what?"
An easy solution is to use something like a tick the box system doable on line with a tax file number even - as a tax payer it can be your right to nominate a percentage of your tax revenue to different streams. As you mentioned - some can go to foreign aid, some to health, some the welfare, some to science and the like. No permission for every dollar, just an agreement as to where your money will be spent. if the people deem something as unpopular it is just another form of vote - like shareholders at an AGM voting on the direction a company should take.
"Some posters are saying tax is THEFT ... which suggest they do not wish to pay it. Anyone NOT legitimately paying tax but helping themselves to the benefits of tax outcomes are leeches on the community."
well a direct unapportioned tax like income tax is theft. when the ATO starts talking about "their money" this is telling us that what is ours is actually partially theirs. maybe semantics but that pretty much makes it theft as the citizen has no choice.A gst on the other hand is not theft as you make the purchase willingly and know what you are getting into before you use the service or product. so get rid of income tax and raise the gst to 30% for example and then we all have the choice.
as for the leeches comment - i think those who produce the least and take a proportionally larger amount out of the system over their life than what they contribute are the biggest leeches so in that instance it would be all the folk on unemployment benefits, all the people who have children who absolutely cannot afford them (but that's another issue all on its own) and the biggest offender of all: religious organisations who get off producing basically nothing (sorry to all the religious folk who think salvation is a tangible commodity). raise huge wealth and pay zero tax. These would be the leeches you refer to, not the person who is sick of seeing their salary raped and tries to do something about it.
I don't pay tax. Am I a leech? I did pay tax for 20 years and paid about 40 - 50k in income tax annually for the last 5 years i paid tax in australia. some people won't pay that amount in their lives yet get cheaper healthcare than me, a freaking baby bonus for simply breeding, and more of the same at every turn. Is this fair? Does this seem reasonable? Me, and others like me, paying more but getting less? And I am by no means rich.
I totally think you have the leeches comment aimed at the wrong people. A leech is a parasite that feeds off its host, the host in this instance being the people that pay tax in all its forms (new cars, stamp duty on houses, Rates, 10% on all the products they buy) whether income tax or not.
I'd be willing to be I paid more in GST in many years than the real leeches paid in taxes.
So yeh, I'm pretty sure I am not a leech even though I don't pay tax.
