Household charge fails to follow Smith’s rules

THE famous economist, Adam Smith’s Canons of Taxation included the following: (i) Tax must be easy to collect.

(ii) It must be fairly allocated, ie with respect to ability to pay. (iii) Taxpayers must know what the tax revenue is paying for.

It seems to me that in relation to the household charge recently imposed here, only characteristic (iii) applies, ie we have been told that the tax revenue is part of our repayments package to the IMF.