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I concur with tax being used for stuff we don't like, as long as a taxpayer has some voice in it, via voting I guess? Kids and animals create nice ads, but they are not on the top of the UK charities for donations (2016) When in NY working for MoMa in volunteer dept I had access to what was donated to the museum and majority was via corporate and estate donation, not necessary hard $$ though, could be art itself.
1 Cancer Research UK £463m
2 British Heart Foundation £278m
3 Sightsavers International £270.5m
4 Macmillan Cancer Support £233.7m
5 Oxfam £211.3m
6 RNLI £182m
7 Salvation Army £141.4m
8 British Red Cross £135.4m
9 RSPCA £121.4m
10 Save the Children £119.6m
Foreigner65-
I concur with tax being used for stuff we don't like, as long as a taxpayer has some voice in it, via voting I guess?
That's the theory. I'm not especially keen on the outcome of recent elections but I still think it is a better system than people directly choosing where their money goes. For example if prisons (5.6 billion last year apparently) had to be funded by raising money from direct donations I think they would have a bit of a crisis.
(I happen to think we use prison too much and there are better ways to deal with offenders but that is a different issue to adequate funding of prisons)
jellybaby
You can do that in the UK too, or at least the tax bit anyway so your donation comes out of your gross income rather than net. Gift Aid achieves the same end result for basic rate payers.
For me tax isn't the same as charitable giving though. for me it is important that tax money is spent on unglamorous things I don't like. Charitable donations are massively skewed to cuddly animals and cute children.