All governments will find a tax of some form to get whatever amount of funds they think they need. The only real variable from one country to the next is how that burden is distributed. The only effective way to reduce the bite is to rationally reduce government spending. There are usually many seeming "frivolities" such as noted above, and while it is fair to decry such abuses, they generally are only a drop in the bucket. And then there's always the problem of one person's "excess" being the next person's "essential". Ain't democracy, in all its varied forms, grand?