They can be funded the same way as any other government department.

user fees*, ad valorem taxes, wealth taxes, excise taxes, sin taxes, stamp acts, capital gains taxes, estate tax, payroll taxes, fines ...

*think of a customs duty as a user fee, user of the inspection of a good crossing the border to be sure it is not a prohibited item being smuggled.

Why should we pay more to buy something from another country?

Because too many of my fellow countrymen voted to leave the EU.

So your neighbour buys a quantity of illegal explosives from some place they shouldn't buy stuff from, brings it into the country and blows your house up, leaving you and your family with no home but some pretty serious injuries. Then you find there's no health service and you have to find the money to get the medical attention that all of you urgently require. And that would be OK with you....
This is your dream of Eutopia, but it is so flawed and I somehow think you would be less than happy with the situation.

I used your ignorant excuses to show how your ideas could lead to YOU being harmed. That is YOU being nearly killed, YOU not getting medical attention, YOU loosing your house. All because someone else does exactly what you want to. YOU can't hide from the outcome of YOUR beliefs.


Yeh, sure rules are for school kids. Remember in my example you neighbour was living by your standards and YOU were the victim. Now, do you want rules to protect you from such actions?

But Peter, you are lying in the road, unable to move and not going to get even half decent medical attention for some considerable time (if you are "lucky"). So how are you going to get your retaliation in?
Isn't far better to have a rule set that makes it all but impossible for your neighbour to get those explosives in the first place? This protecting YOU from the actions (intentional or otherwise) of someone else.

I want us all to be treated like adults and make our own decisions. Rules and regulations are for schoolkids.

Someone walks in, shoots and kills you and gets away with it, as he's an adult and made his own decision to shoot and kill you. Because rules and regulations are only for schoolchildren.

sin taxes: misspelling of something computer programmers and grammar fiends observe.

Your family might want to have some closure on that.

sin taxes: misspelling of something computer programmers and grammar fiends observe.

Pay the government a sum of money for every bug in your program?

Remove all that nonsense and have ONE tax. Income tax. Less paperwork and therefore less cost to collect. Easier for everyone, and can be made as fair as you want it with different tax bands.

Because it would raise total 'income tax' to an average of ~70% overall on every pound earned.

Greater if there is to be an 'income allowance' and maybe smaller, if you could get all the rich people to stay and not use loopholes, their very good accountants know of, like mine, an ex-tax inspector, to pay their full share. As Pink Floyd put it in Money "I'm alright, Jack, keep your hands off of my stack "