I agree with the 'only pay for services I use' mentality. One of my biggest hates is the UK TV License. Why should I pay the same amount of money as someone who watches 5 hours of soaps & reality TV shows a day when I only watch MAYBE 1 hour worth of TV a WEEK. Anyway, I payed my TV license for the first year, then I learnt my lesson and haven't paid since, and refuse to pay it in the future.
A society doesn't work that way penski, and you know I'm right. Insurance doesn't work that way either. If your house burned down, and you paid insurance for it, you'll expect that the insurance gives you more money than you paid the insurance company. The insurance company can afford this because it works with the idea that not everyone's house burns down, yet everyone will pay. If you get very ill, cancer, and you have a shitload of medical bills to pay, your insurance or the government will pay most of it (at least here in Belgium). If everyone would think "I only wanna pay for services I need", then you would probably have never gotten out of high school without debts, because the government would be unable to pay for it all. If you get cancer, and everyone that doesn't has cancer says "**** this, I'm only paying for services I'm using", you won't be able to pay for an operation or treatment.
Read the thread. Read my response to the medical question. Understand how the taxation structure in the UK works and then tell me how me paying the council for services they provide yet I don't need to use is a good thing. *n
If you do not pay for things everyone else pay for - like tax and licences, then things will become more expensive, mainly because of administration fees on who should pay for them and who shouldn't. Its the same with benefits, child benefits are available to everyone who has a child, only because its cheaper to give everyone the benefits than to selcet certian people!
The extra work involved in increasing the council tax of people who apply to have their child start school is negligible. *n
Quid= basically the same as our "buck" in reference to a dollar. Slang. VAT= we've got pretty much the same thing, but it's just referred to as "sales tax." Although most European countries get jacked on taxes (sales tax in Colorado ranges from about 4% to about 8%, depending on county, as opposed to VAT which can be in the neighborhood of 15-20%!) In most places, we don't pay sales tax on food either, although that's also up to the county that you live in. Pence= basically the equivalent of our penny. And just about as useless.
Yeah, this is the one time I'll say that we've got one up on you Brits. I don't understand why you pay for it, especially since you've got commercials just like we do (although far fewer, I'd imagine.) We do have to pay for cable/satellite services though, but standard TV is free. Keep in mind that a half-hour long TV show in the States is actually only about 20 minutes when you take out the commercials...and I think we take the cake for some of the dumbest commercials ever produced.
It's sort of the same, at least as far as "earn more, pay more taxes" goes. We've got different "tax brackets", which means that if you make over a certain amount, you pay a higher percentage of taxes (most of the time.) It can get really confusing if you make a lot of money and claim a lot of deductions or tax write-offs. We also have certain "extra" refunds, such as getting a little bit more money back if you're a single parent. In the US, if you make more than $600 at any one job in a year, you have to pay taxes on it. For instance, if I work a job for a few weeks and make $500, I won't have to pay taxes on it as long as I don't continue to work for that company (and subsequently make over $600.) If I go to work for a different company and proceed to make another $20,000 that year, I still won't have to pay taxes on that $500, because it was a different company and I didn't make over $600. If that made any sense...
Belgium has the best of both worlds! Free cable, you don't need to pay for a TV licence, and very few commercials compared to the USA. The 21% VAT ruins it all, though
Yeah, there's always a catch. Canada has free healthcare, but "stuff" in general costs a lot more than it does in the US, so it's not really "free" per se.
Yeah we have something like that as well. Everyone is obliged to have medical insurance (which is very cheap over here) so that no-one will ever die because of something silly that could be cured with surgery or treatment easily if only that person could pay for it. For example, if I get sinusitis (dunno english name?) and go to a doctor, my mom pays €20 to him, of which she gets €18 back next month of the insurance company, she then buys me the medicines I need and gets an equally high percentage back on that as well. If I need treatment in a hospital, of which the costs a night are very high (as in every country I presume), the insurance company again gives back an equally high percentage of those costs. We also have cheap education, it costs only €502 ($651, £346) to go to university for a year. If you have a scholarship (which is not the same like in other countries, only the students which have parents that earn below a certain amount get a scholarship (but on the other hand, _everyone_ that has this "feature" gets a scholarship, not only the ubersmart ones or good in sports-ones)) you only have to pay €80 ($103, £55) a year. I guess that's where those extra % in VAT go to. Nonetheless, I like this system more because, ok, you pay more VAT, but if you get ill you're at least certain you'll get treated, and almost anyone can get a good education, no matter what your parents earn.
The windsors have their own fortunes (likely one of the reasons they came to be the royal family in the first place). And as penski said - compared to what they bring in, they cost us nothing (they may even make us money (technically, in that respect) - theres a lot of royals merchandise, people may for papers of news of the royals - tourists will pay to see something happen somewhere). I dont know the exact figures - but i would expect they cost us less than we bring back over their publicity around the world. god save the queen! edit: and Lord_A - the tv licence pays for the BBC to keep making good quality stuff - while some of the sitcoms may have been a tad laclustre recently, the documentaries and stuff they have at the moment are great. Some of the nature shows - that tribe guy (them categories are all i have seen), have both been up to standard BBC Quality - which is high... and they have no ads which is the greatest! (<- hates ads).
Meh I don't mind paying VAT, TV license etc Sure it would be cheaper to live in America but Americans are poorer than us. Our average salary is higher so we can afford the extra. Plus I would hate to have to pay to go to hospital, dentist etc. TV linceses are a bit extortionate but this way we get good quality TV without any crappy adverts. You can watch whole episodes of shows without being interupted. Sales tax caught me out when I was in America for the first time. I was buying something for like $5 so gave the guy $5 and was walking out when he started complaining. Do you have to take a calculator with you when you go shopping? Australian money is by far the coolest. It's colourful, has see-through bits and it's sort of plasticy so it's waterproof. American money on the other hand is grim. It's dirty and feels like cheap nasty paper. You can't easily tell what kind of note it is because they all look the same. I asked an american how you tell the difference between them and she was like "Duh, by reading it" How the hell is a blind or partially sighted person supposed to do that. Are they meant to trust the person behind the counter to take the right amount out of a wad of notes.
