Re: Oh and...
"Every month as you pay into your pension there is a transaction, to you in your pay (of course that's a transaction that will be taxed) from you to your pension provider, then as they split up the money and distribute it. There are further charges are they move your money in and out of varying investments. "
Use your imagination a bit, puhlease.
Individual transactions smaller than a relatively low threshold are completely ignored for tax purposes. Transactions over that threshold are recorded but not immediately taxable unless they are big enough to class as Big Transactions in which case they are immediately taxable. If an individual recipient (person, organisation) has enough income via the "recorded but not big" transaction route, that's taxable too. Choose the "below this is invisible" and "above this is immediately taxable" thresholds sensibly to maintain a sensible balance between income and inconvenience.
Hey look, something like that might even be beneficial to smaller organisations (e.g. contractors?) whilst reducing the opportunities for corporate kleptocrats and the 1% to rip off the rest of us.
Will that do as a starter for 10? I realise much more thought is needed, and it would never get the approval of the tax lawyers and tax accountants, but today's current system is clearly unfit for purpose, and a radical simplification is long overdue.
"how much would the infrastructure to make the charges on the transactions and move them to government cost to implement?"
It would be simpler, and therefore it ought to cost a lot less than the infrastructure that supports (sometimes badly) the current chaos. Of course if Crapita, EDS, Fujitsu, etc get the job, all bets are off.
I don't think anyone with a clue thinks a flat rate tax would be easy. But it might be easier than the current collection of loopholes.
Anyway, has anyone mentioned Land Value Tax yet?
That's another one which ought to be relatively simple to implement and hard to dodge. You can't move land via Luxembourg (etc), and if you don't want to be seen owning it, well, maybe you don't get the benefits of owning it, e.g. rent, or any gains from buying and selling it.