Tax

As a child I had absolutely no idea what tax was. But I do remember my grandmother saying; "There are three things in life that are guaranteed: birth, death and taxes." I didn't realised however that what is also guaranteed is people whinging about taxes.

Every single person who is earning a living appears to hate taxes. They despise taxes as if it is someone personally steals a couple hundred from their bank account every fortnight. Now this whinging I can tolerate to a certain extent. As I now earn my own living I know how annoying it is to desperately sneak out the calculator mid shift to figure out what the next pay check will come in at, and then when it does it's not as much as I actually earned. Annoying. Agreed.

However, as I start to socialise with more and more adults I have found a brand new strain of taxation whinging. People whinging about how their tax is being spent. Oh dear God people, give it a rest. At least idle chit chat about the weather is slightly more invigorating. According to them their money has been stolen and now they want to decide how its been spent. If their tax is not being spent on something that benefits them it is a "total waste of taxpayer dollars" (insert exasperated tone). If it happens to be a freeway right on their way to work it is instead a comment of "Finally something useful has been done with my hard earned money".

All I have to say is that it confuses me to tears. We all know we have to pay tax and we all know that it gets used and we have absolutely no say about where it goes or what it pays for. So stop worrying. Seriously, give that scary, bulging vein in your head a rest.

Besides, you get some back in at end of financial year.