Taxes. Why do we pay them? What benefits do they bring? What damage do they cause? And how could they work better? Here, author Eamonn Butler provides a jargon-free guide to taxation, its history, its aims and purposes, and its impact on individuals and economies. He invokes the work of pioneering economist Adam Smith, who defined the basic principles of good tax policy - fairness, certainty, convenience and efficiency. And he observes that taxation regularly falls short of these aims - they're skewed for political ends and often weigh heavily on the least well-off. They're overly-complex, costly to comply with and, in some cases, create more harm than good. In concise and coherent fashion, he critiques the knee-jerk thinking behind the introduction of new and higher taxes. He puts forward different ways of funding public services, whilst exploring the principles that would make for a much better - and much simpler - tax system.