A few weeks ago, I got my (somewhat belated) annual tax summary for 2015-16. It is mostly uninteresting - my pay slips already tell me how much tax I pay. An interesting coincidence, however, caught my eye.

On the reverse is a break-down of how ‘my’ tax was spent. According to this, ~20% went to ‘Health’. The reason I found this arresting is that my employer pays for private medical insurance for me. Specifically, the cost of the insurance is ~50% of the nominal value of taxes I pay to support the NHS.

This, then, strikes to the core of why I like to pay tax: even discounting moral/ethical arguments, providing services at government scope often seems most efficient. Would a ~5% increase in income tax/NI not make sense if it allowed the NHS to provide the standard of care that one currently expects from private insurance?