Books taxes and class

 A senior conservative politician, while Chancellor of the Exchequer ‘forgot’ to pay tax on money he had hidden in another country in his parents’ names to avoid paying tax. When HMRC found out he had to pay £5 million in tax (including a fine). ‘Easily done’ say other MPs. ‘We will wait for the enquiry’ says the PM who is running out of MPs to appoint in his place. ‘Tax forms are complicated’ says a sister. 

Of course.

Tax forms are complicated. I just did mine. I did my own because I don’t have enough money for it to be difficult. If I did then an accountant would do it for me.

We can forgive him for his mistake, can’t we? I mean that’s ok. It doesn’t matter if he’s tried to hide a little bit from the tax office, everyone does it. There’s not enough money. Of course we can pay £20 each time we see a GP.

But if you are earning minimum wage then it would take you 250 years to earn the amount of tax he forgot to pay.

Tax is a class issue. Class is a wealth issue. Our complicated tax form is there because the system is designed by the rich and allows all sorts of ways to wriggle out of paying. If you are middle earners, however, the tax form will probably cause you to pay tax on things poorer people who don’t complete a tax form don’t pay, like interest.

Just like books.

‘When I grow up and I’m rich I’m going to have a room like this’ I said when I was 9 and visited Sissinghurst

Books are a signifier of class.

Books are also a touchy subject.

A lucky Guardian journalist went viral with her piece on books yesterday. She felt that owning books was a pretentious and middle class thing to do. People got upset.’Leave our books alone’ ‘I’m not middle class. I just like books.’

There’s nothing wrong with being middle class. It’s a privilege to have enough money to buy books. It’s a privilege to be asked to pay extra tax. The tendency to hoard comes from a fear of loss or remembering you didn’t have enough before.

She might have had a point though. Keeping books. Buying books is something you only do when you have disposable income or a house big enough to keep them in. Before that you had to give them back to the library. Even if you loved them like one of your own children.

The very rich probably don’t keep their trashy paperbacks in their inherited ancestral library because it would lower the tone but they are keeping first editions of all Booker prize winners and anything they speculate might be important. They will keep Prince Harry’s Spare, even though the metaphors will have it trying to jump from the shelf to the bin.

If you are middle class then you probably keep everything. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not hurting anyone.

If you want to be upper class or rich then you should jettison your books and hide as much money from the tax office as possible. Or you could be happy in the middle, hoping for a fairer more equal world where being in the middle is the place to be.

 Buy books. Pay taxes. Be happy.