A long-term game that no one would have the bottle to try

To tax or not tax, to spend or not to spend. Those are the questions, right? Wrong. They're only the questions for the simpletons amongst the party political crowd. Be it the head bangers to the Right who perpetuate not only a mythical belief in a "core strategy" or the unthinking "anything but the Tories" loons to the Left, everything comes down to this simple reductionist worldview.

On the Right it's all about cutting the totemic income tax rate and scrapping the stealth taxes to destroy the Lord Protector Brown's inherent socialism. On the Left it's all about spending ever more on the "public services" and "frontline delivery" or whatever the latest buzzword may be. The two have become the ying and yang of simpleton political discourse.

The thing is, really, we don't need a debate on the level of tax we pay. What we need is a debate on the manner in which we pay it. It seems strangely perverse, to me at least, why we don't change our culture of tax so that, instead of having the Government's as the guarantor of altruism, it becomes encourager of altruism by proxy, by exploiting its binary opposite, selfishness?

After all, it is difficult I think for anyone to argue against the idea that - in a stable economy where inflation is not running rampant and growth is steady - the more money people have the better they off their lives are. This is a true across the political divide. If it weren't then the Left would not so passionately defend the very principle of the Welfare State. The question should not though be about the end but instead the means.

Instead of bogging ourselves down in the catchy and pithy sound bite discourse that says a cut of 1% in the rate of income will solve the world (for the Right) or destroy it (for the Left). Why don't we simply ask, by what means can we achieve the outcome that everyone has most amount of money, and therefore the most, for want of a better word, happiness* that it brings?*

We need to start thinking about tax in terms of pleasure rather than pain don't we? We're already seeing it in ideas about the environment and tax. You cannot change people's behaviour by making them pay more. They will simply squeeze themselves and pay anymore. Instead you change their behaviour by encouraging them to make changes because they get something in return. You use tax breaks instead of taxes.

But tax incentives and breaks should not just be for the environment alone. They should be being applied in a much broader way. You don't have to cut the headline rate of tax at all, at least not immediately, because what you do is individualise tax by offering breaks for all manner of things instead, and you let individuals take responsibility for paying it.

Have you got a dependent? Tax break. Have you got more than one dependent? Tax break. Married (or in a legally binding relationship that treats you as a single entity in law - this is not a moral issue in my mind)? Tax break. Got a dependent and have an income below a certain level? Tax break.

Loft insulation? Tax break. Cavity wall insulation? Tax break. Paying a mortage? Tax break. Own a "clean" car? Tax break. Use public transport with some sort of receipted pass? Tax break. Make regularly payments to charity? Tax break. Use renewably sourced energy? Tax break. Actively engage in a beneficial way with society (teachers, fireman, school governor, PTA member, Scout leader)? Tax break.

Of course, some might say there is a problem with this system. For it implies the need for ever-greater responsibility of individuals - not the Sage Accounting systems of employers - to pay their taxes. But such changes are not the sort of thing you can bring about overnight, it's a long game entirely.

It's worth noting though that the Government is proposing to teach children money management at schools in order to encourage personal responsibility. Surely that is the place where the seeds need to be sewn for a cultural change about our relationship as individuals with the taxman, ergo the state?

Introducing a system of personal responsibility in tax which is framed around the notion of breaks would also reduce in quite impressive monetary terms the administrative bills of Government that currently deal with handing out many of these breaks in the form of benefits anyway.

You could, consequently, increase your spending in specific areas which actually required it as a result. The Welfare State could once again become something that dealt solely with those that genuinely needed its help.

Of course I realise that this is all just "pie in the sky" really. I can't think of single politician in power - or who has any serious contention to power - that would be brave enough to advocate a long game which could change our relationship with the taxman in such a fundamental way. The short-term world is always more appealing than the long-term one.

* I do not want to have a discussion about whether money busy you happiness. I used the term because I could not think of a better one to use to express the admittedly general idea that the more money people have the more their quality of life tends to increase.