If income tax were optional (opt-out), what would our countries look/be like?

In this hypothetical scenario, income tax (and national insurance) becomes optional (opt-out).

What happens to the country?

The free market steps in and does what it does.

Probably a lot like the US, where extremely wealthy individuals essentially can and do opt out of it by lobbying politicans to fight against higher marginal tax rates, and avoid paying taxes by engaging in ostensible philanthropy up to the point where it is tax deductible. For reference, the US has crumbling infrastructure, enormous wealth disparity and a very large proportion of the country living in poverty.



i.e. nothing.

Yet

a) the us has higher taxes than the uk
b) the us poverty rate is actually lower than the uk's
c) 6 of the wealthiest cities in the world are in the US
d) the us has the third highest wages in the world
e) the us's infrastructure rating is right in line with the uk's according to the world bank

you're stupid lol

In this hypothetical scenario, income tax (and national insurance) becomes optional (opt-out).

What happens to the country?

The US has lower income tax than the UK, which I know because I'm a US citizen living in the UK, and need to pay taxes in the UK while filing for taxes in the US - because they don't duplicate taxes for the same things, and US income tax is so much lower than UK income tax, I never have to pay tax in the US (just file for it).

The US has lower taxes than the UK, which I know because I'm a US citizen living in the UK, and need to pay taxes in the UK while filing for taxes in the US - because they don't duplicate taxes for the same things, and US taxes are so much lower than UK taxes, I never have to pay tax in the US (just file for it).

Having a handful of wealthy cities doesn't mean anything if the majority of the population does not live in those cities, nor does it mean anything when large proportions of the population in those cities live in poverty. The US has the second highest rate of poverty of "rich" developed countries. The UK was seventh. Beyond that, literally none of what you stated otherwise is true and is very easy to fact check and see that it's all false. There was literally a news report last year where the UN's goals for developing countries were applied against US infrastructure and it failed on most of them.

I'm not sure what you're hoping to gain from lying about this, but lying to someone who was born in the US, previously lived there, and lives in the UK, who thus has lived experience of both countries, is definitely not a good look for you since it's immediately apparent to me that none of what you've said is true. Moreover as above these are easily checked against published data.

But you don't pay US sales taxes which are imposed on a far wider range of goods than VAT and funds much of State expenditure or US property taxes that funds a much higher percentage of US municipal expenditure than Council Tax.