What’s in a name? The problem with the Robin Hood tax

By Sarah Hayward / @Sarah_Hayward

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Robin Hood Tax. It’s a great idea, an extension of the Tobin tax to cover all inter-bank transactions without touching retail transactions is seemingly brilliant. And if the campaign has got their numbers right, then a rich seam of tax income has been identified in a time of economic hardship and challenged public finances. Hurrah! It’s perfect!

So why am I complaining?

The blooming name. Who in God’s name thought it was sensible to brand a tax after someone who’s most famous for robbing people? (That and leading a band of merry men and, latterly, tight wearing – but that’s for another time). Some of us on the left might sneakily love the idea of ‘stealing from the rich to give to the poor’ – but it’s still stealing, isn’t it.

Tax isn’t theft. It’s a mechanism for Governments to collect money from people, businesses, property, etc, to pay for specific services or change behaviours. With a tax, if we don’t like paying it or don’t like the services provided in exchange for it we can exercise our democratic right and vote out the Government. And because I am lucky enough to hold a British passport I can even chose to up sticks and move to another country with different taxes for different services.

If I have my purse robbed, in, say – to pluck a completely random example – a Camden pub by a drug addict, a few days before I’m due to fly to Cuba, there’s not much in protest or voting terms I can do to rectify that situation. I cancel my cards, I call the police, I argue with the bank about getting replacement cards in time for my holiday and feel drained by and, more importantly, am completely powerless over the whole experience.

This point – although some will argue it’s simply one of presentation – is hugely important to me. The debate about tax in this country most often centres around how wastefully it’s spent (often not true) and how to cut it, not what value we as individuals and communities get out of it. The majority of the mainstream media, the Conservatives and to a lesser extent the Lib Dems present public services and expenditure of taxpayers’ money as almost universally wasteful and, yes, equate it to theft in the language they chose to use. Presenting any new tax as a theft (which is exactly how the Daily Mail chose to cover the Robin Hood Tax), plays in to the hands of the right wing agenda for the state to provide as little as possible in terms of public services and leave people to fend for themselves on health, childcare, education, crime and justice – you name it.

I don’t support collecting any more taxes than is necessary for the level of services that we as a society chose to provide, and every tax chould be justified to the payer, but I do know damn well I would chose to fund more services for more people and indeed different people than the average Tory or Daily Mail reader – because I believe it is right that people have access to education and healthcare regardless of their personal circumstance and I believe it is right that society, through Government, provides support for the worst off, preferably support that enables people to improve their lives. Tax is the lever by which politicians and communities achieve these and all other social goals.

Branding tax as a theft is a very poor message to send at any time. Branding this execellent idea for a new tax, that in the current climate should be able to achieve very broad-based popular support (even from Daily Mail readers) as theft is little short of a tragedy.

The campaign shot themslves in the foot before they even started.