Talking with the taxman about poetry

Monday January 18, 2010

Billy Bragg refuses to pay income tax unless the government moves to limit bonus payments at the Royal Bank of Scotland

Well, you can try. But you can also lead a horse to water … Still good luck, Billy Bragg. The Daily Telegraph was the first to report that the musician and political activist is refusing to pay his income tax unless the Government moves to limit bonus payments at the Royal Bank of Scotland. The musician has also written to Alistair Darling to inform him of his protest and has started a Facebook campaign to encourage others to follow his lead. Currently there are over 15,000 members of the campaign. No response from Darling yet.

The Guardian shares more details of Bragg’s initial protest:

“How did it come to this? I’ve just been called an anarchist in a live radio interview by a woman who works for a company that head-hunts financial high flyers. Why? Was I suggesting that we should abolish all forms of centralised authority? Was I calling for the overthrow of the capitalist system? What exactly had I done to suggest to her that I wanted to tear apart the very fabric of society?

“I had told her that I am withholding my tax until the chancellor of the exchequer acts to curb the bonus payments to investment bankers at RBS. ‘What if everybody did that?’ she cried. ‘We’d have anarchy!’

“There isn’t much chance of everybody doing that, given that most people’s tax is taken directly from their wages via PAYE. However, some of us will have recently received a reminder to pay our tax online by the end of the month. I came across mine the day after seeing RBS executive director Stephen Hester smirk as he told a commons select committee that, rather than explain to the public that he was about to pay his staff an estimated £1.5bn in bonuses next month, he’d avoid the ensuing rancour by sloping off on holiday for a long while.

“Never mind that RBS posted the worst corporate losses in British financial history last year. He’s had his empty coffers replenished with taxpayers’ money and now he’s going to fill his boots. Watching Hester’s ‘let them eat cake’ moment on TV, I felt both outraged and at the same time powerless.”

Yesterday our friends at The Taxpayers Alliance added their voice of support to Bragg’s campaign. Matthew Elliott writes: “Billy Bragg and I undoubtedly have very different views of the world’s problems – and I am certain that many of our prescriptions to heal those problems would differ even more. He might believe that more socialism is the answer to this sickening situation, while I would point out that interventionism brought us to it. However, we agree on one, key thing – rewards for failure are wrong, and the people must force the politician to listen.”