That's why we tax the living fuck out of the working man, it seems.

I, for example, pay \ufffd1-ish for a litre of fuel. 75% of that is tax.

I am taxed at approximately 40 pence in the pound, all things considered.

And when I buy a house, I will pay tens of thousands of pounds in stamp duty, for the privilege of spending many thousands of pounds on a house.

Inheritance tax is, quite simply, the final insult.

If government cannot afford to work with the tax income from living people, then I humbly suggest they get their house in order, stop spending money on stupid wars that have no bearing on the security of our nation, and don't do things like \ufffd750 million of our money on the Millennium Fucking Dome and other idiotic white elephants of a similar ilk.

There's billions of pounds sloshing around that's been extracted from the populace that simply gets pissed away by the state. Make them spend THAT properly.

An article with which I agree is in a comment replying to this one (it's a bit long).

(As for the "we need to control the rich people" thing - well, it's pointless because they simply employ expensive accountants in order to arrange their money in such a way that they're untouched. So you piss off the tiddlers (aka voters) and don't affect the big fish.)