Google, you'd think 17.5% wasn't too bad, but remember most of our general tax & VAT money goes into asylum funds. So at the end of the day the average British person sees no good come from it in our country. Yours may be 7% higher but the things the money goes to I'm sure are far better, like peacekeeping as you said before. You have to weigh up the pros & cons don't you? So when it comes to tax, although we may not be taxed that much in comparison, we don't get any better off because of it in the kinds of things government money should go to, to benefit us. I'm sure this is kinda' going off topic but it's true.

James