The supposed economic benefits of "tarriffs"

are something I will not pretend to understand. I am not an economist. I am a simple minded "cat" with respect to economics. I work on the principle of, "Do I have enough money to pay for the essentials?" Then it is, "If I have paid for all the essentials have I managed to save something for the future essentials?" At the end it is, "If I have done the first two is it wise to spend money on something I would like or want to do but is not essential?"

Okay, it is more complex than that but I suspect most of us work like that. The vast majority of us "splash out" sometimes. We all buy something non-essential or do something we did not plan to do. This is in addition to unexpected bills and the like. Our accounting is often of the sort which asks, "Is there money in my account which can pay for this?" We juggle things. Credit card users will regret purchases, particularly for non-essentials.

The recent election results have shown all too clearly however that we need to be a great deal more economically literate. The government which was returned has made all sorts of promises it cannot possibly keep. The money simply is not there. In order to pay for at least some of what they have said they will do they will need more money. This is the usual situation of course. It is why we pay taxes.  

In this instance however the government is planning to tax some people on money they have yet to earn. This is not the "provisional tax" for the earnings in the following year, money which will be returned if they have earned less than the amount due on the projected income.  This is a tax on money being saved for retirement, on which tax has already been paid.  What is more it is a tax which cannot be applied to some of those earning the most because the Constitution, not the law but the Constitution, does not allow it. 

The government is cheerfully telling us that the proposed provisions will only apply to a tiny number of people. That may be true at the moment but the proposal is not being "indexed" and that means a good many more people will be caught up in this net in the future. This is an issue which has been raised but, so far, the government is not listening except to keep saying that it will affect only a very few. 

It will never affect me. I will never, short of someone else buying me a winning lottery ticket, have enough money to be concerned about the amount of tax I am paying. It does however concern me because , while we need to pay taxes, this seems wrong. Just on fifty years ago one state ditched "death duties". Far from doing the state's coffers any harm it actually increased revenue as people moved in. Eventually the other states had to do the same thing. What is more people were encouraged to save for their future. People knew that if they were to die suddenly then the government was not going to get a share at the expense of a partner or children. Yes, there are other issues with this but it can have a positive influence as well. It might have seemed counter-intuitive at the time but it worked.

I think it was the late Maggie Thatcher who said something along the lines of "the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money". It seems that our government is trying desperately hard to get money that has not yet even been earned. It is doing this in addition to demanding ever increasing amounts of money in other ways.  As I said at the start I am not an economist. I fail to see how this works for the good of all and into the future. Could someone please explain in words of one syllable?