Scrymarch . # .

We\'re arguing past each other: In the great-grandparent you wrote:

Government services would be replaced by personal spending or business inefficiency

This is true to an extent, but not all government spending results in government services.  Middle class welfare is particularly ridiculous, Here\'s Craig Emerson sticking the boot in , though Labor have been guilty of it in the past.

Middle (and upper!) class welfare payments in the form of cash transfers are ridiculous.  There\'s very little benefit here except to the political class.  They\'ve inserted themselves as middlemen between my wallet and the supermarket!

As I mentioned below, you\'re completely ignoring transaction costs.  That $4 is .50c to the tax accountant, .50c to pay the taxman to interpret the 10 page tax return and find out if I claimed a self-education expense under sub-section C (Attending John Farnham concerts) when it should be claimed under sub-section E-3 (attempting to sing your VCR manual in the original Korean), $1.50 to health payments, .50c to national defence and police, $1 to schools and universities (funnelled through another layer of state bureaucracy) ... and when John Howard spends 20% of the budget on the environment, I\'ll eat my hat :)

The problems of life amongst the 20 million other people in this great brown land of ours are inherently complicated.  The tax code, however, is complicated because it serves the needs of the political class and the clients they\'ve created.