Adele, taxpayers' heroine
Posted by Christie Malry on May 26, 2011 at 10:34 pm
The Guardian has got very hot and bothered about comments made by Adele, music superstar, about her personal tax bill:
Now, I love Adele. But that doesn't exactly endear you to her, does it? Let's look at it again.
"I'm mortified to have to pay 50%!" The Beatles had to pay 95% - as did all the highest earners under two successive governments (Wilson and Heath) in the mid-60s. George Harrison wrote a song about it, can't remember what it's called, sorry.
"I use the NHS." Keep paying your taxes then or it'll be gone.
"I can't use public transport any more." The rest of us plebs still have to. Adele, however, will never be short of the sponds for a private car to Shoreditch House from now until the end of time.
"Trains are always late." What does that matter when you don't use them? And they're not anyway.
"Most state schools are shit." Actually, according to the most recent Ofsted report for the UK, "Just over two thirds of schools at their most recent inspection were providing a good or better education for their pupils. Pupils' behaviour was good or outstanding in 86% of schools." Of course, if rich people stop paying their taxes then they will become shit.
"When I got my tax bill in, I was ready to go and buy a gun and randomly open fire." Now, you have to assume this was a joke rather than the first bitter taste of a full-blown psychotic episode, but it's still upsetting to hear this musician I admire seems as greedy as the most moat-friendly, port-stained Tory grandee.
As you might expect from a grizzly old contrarian like me, I take the completely opposite point of view. I don't love Adele. I've never heard her music before. But I am deeply sympathetic with her point of view. Even if you were naive or stupid enough to believe that every last penny of taxation is spent on vital public services, it's totally obscene that the state should demand half of anyone's income. Even if the rest of us think that some people are rich, there is simply no ex ante justification for requiring that anyone should give half of what they earn to the state. In Adele's case, even though she pays significantly more tax than the rest of us, she's unable to use any of the public services we force her to pay for. It's doubly unfair.
The left's attitude to taxpayers like Adele is absolutely inexcusable. We should worship our top earners, because they pay - by some margin - almost all of our income tax. Pick your figure - for example, the top 1% pay nearly 28% of all income tax. Were Adele to decide to make her home outside the UK, we would be much poorer for it. And judging by the ungrateful and downright rude tweets, she'd be justified in feeling rather unloved and unwanted by the disgusting self-interested scum that inhabit #ukuncut.
Anyway, if you would like to show your support for Adele (and,in the process, help increase her tax bill even further), you can buy her CD here.
But the state doesn't demand half of her income. It's half of what she earns over and above £150,000.
She's also her own boss, and will probably use 'company' money for other personal benefits, a privilege that most people don't have.
regarding your final point about 'worshiping' top earners - I presume that's an unfortunate choice of words, then again your altar might well be the bank. Sad really.
Rubbish. For those of you who have elevated the state above the rights of ordinary people, *you* should worship high earners. Because it's they, not the masses, who actually pay for everything.