We should shine a spotlight on decades of dishonesty

Many of the greatest spongers in the world (politicians) are now trumpeting “the good of the State” as their reason for clamping down on tax-avoidance.

Firstly, it has been known for decades that wealthy people and corporations use offshore companies and trusts to avoid — not evade — paying tax.

It is legal, because laws were made by previous politicians to allow their cronies to do that.

Secondly, the State is merely a name that is used when they want something.

Every decent taxpayer in private industry — garages, shoe shops, journalists, supermarkets, book shops, hairdressers, etc — owns the country, because without them to generate tax money, the politicians would have nothing.

A government’s duty used to be, and should still be, to make sure that it creates the best country for honest workers.

Unfortunately for us, all that the politicians want now, desperately, is money to prop up their ludicrously extravagant lifestyles and pay the hundreds of thousands of largely useless bureaucrats that they dishonestly created.

The energy from this facade of honesty should be used to shine a spotlight on those decades of dishonesty.

Dick Barton

Tinahely

Co Wicklow