Britons Toil Longer to Pay Their Taxes

[Phaedrus]

by Jason Gorringe
Tax-News.com

May 30 was a significant date for most Britons this year, as it was the day they effectively stopped working for the government and began drawing from their own pay, in what has become known as Tax Freedom Day.

This means that every penny earned by the average British worker up to that date has been needed just to pay taxes, according to the Adam Smith Institute, the free-market think-tank which calculates the date each year.

And according to the Institute, this date has been falling later and later since the present government came to power in 1997, when Tax Freedom Day arrived on May 25.

“It is astonishing that Gordon Brown has managed to make us all put in six days more work for the Treasury without many people noticing. It is a tribute to his skill at dreaming up new stealth taxes”, commented the Institute’s director, Dr Eamonn Butler.

To calculate the date, the Institute compares the Budget predictions of national income against the total amount raised in taxes. And since the tax take is about 42% of national income, it means people have to spend 42% of the year working solely to pay taxes.

The man behind the tax freedom day calculation, City economist Gabriel Stein, explained: “People often joke that they spend as much time working for the government as they do for themselves. But unfortunately it is getting nearer and nearer to the literal truth. Tax Freedom Day enables people to see how near to the truth it really is.”

However, compared to taxpayers in the eurozone the British get away relatively lightly. There, in 2002 (the last available figures), tax freedom day did not fall until June 28. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, US taxpayers celebrated freedom from taxes on April 11, the earliest date in 37 years.

Still, those Britons old enough to remember may look back wistfully to the good old days of 1964, when England’s cricketers weren’t routinely humiliated by the Australians and one worked a full five weeks less to pay off one’s taxes.

 

[Oceans11]

Taxes are not a particularly big issue here, although the right continually weeps and wails and wrings its hands about them.
We see it as the cost of a civilised society.

The Adam Smith institute, an august body of right wing dreamers, was responsible for the brilliant 'poll tax'.

This was responsible for the only tax riots in living memory in Britain.

It takes a fair amount to make the British public riot nowadays, but these capitalist muppets managed it, and brought Margaret Thatcher down in the process.
(So I suppose the left should thank them for that at least)

-------------------------------------

Poll Tax 1990


The poll tax led to widespread riots 1990 became a year of violent protests and organised demonstrations against the Government's plan for the revised rating system. This became known as the Poll Tax after the hated 14th-century Poll Tax, which had been a major cause of the Peasants' Revolt. The result in the late 20th century was a large anti-Government vote in local and by-elections.

Thatcherism had been discredited and there was every sign in 1989 that she had lost control of the cabinet. Sir Geoffrey Howe had been sacked from the Foreign Office and John Major took over the role. Howe was given the job of Lord President - but only to keep him quiet. When Nigel Lawson resigned as Chancellor, Thatcher moved her only pawn, John Major, to the Treasury.

Now in 1990, the Tory knives were sharpened. On November 1 1990, Howe resigned and his 'good-bye' speech was devastating to Thatcher's authority. Three weeks later, the Tories held a leadership election and although the PM had a majority in the first ballot, it wasn't big enough. Most of her colleagues turned on her and she was finally defeated. John Major (largely with the support of the Stop Heseltine movement) became Prime Minister, after only eleven years as an MP.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/england/pwar_poll_tax.shtml

 

[Phaedrus]

“Taxation is the price we pay for civilization.” -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

The twentieth century proved, if you were paying any attention, that taxation is the great enemy of civilization. How do you think Hitler paid for that army? With voluntary contributions? How did Stalin pay for the Gulag Archipelago? With bake sales? Ultimately, all the hot, warm, and cold wars and genocides and classicides and nuclearicides of the dismal twentieth century were paid for by taxation. Barbarism is the price we pay for taxation. -- James Ostrowski

I don't expect a socialist android like yourself to understand eek.


Phaedrus

 

[Marco]

Just curious to know where tax freedom day would be at if we quit trying to jail gamblers, drug users, and people that just want to get laid.....

Instead of spending billions upon billions of dollars in those pursuits.....take them out of the black market and turn them into tax generating, regulated industries.....

....could save a few hundred billions more by letting other countries fight thier own damn wars also...

That'd be a real good start.

 

[Phaedrus]

Prolly around January 5th or so.

Phaedrus

 

[Oceans11]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
I don't expect a socialist android like yourself to understand eek.
Phaedrus<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As long as you rich tight fisted gits pay your dues to our civilisation I couldn't care less.
The more they get, they less they want to part with it.
Thank God for Government.

If you want zip taxes, buy yourself a little country where you can be the King, and pay no taxes.

You and George could take turns, week about.

 

[Phaedrus]

Damn, Ontarians have it even worse than the British ... 27 June and getting farther back each year.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Tax Freedom Day Nears

(Canadian Press/Globe & Mail)

Toronto — Ontario taxpayers will enjoy tax-freedom day on June 27, four days later than in 2003, the Fraser Institute announced Monday.

That is the day by which the institute says people have paid the total tax bill imposed on them by all levels of government for the year.

The conservative think-tank, which promotes the day as a representation of government's total take of the overall economy, said this is the largest increase in tax-freedom day for any province this year.

“Tax Freedom Day is just one day shy of its peak in 1999,” said Mark Mullins, the institute's director of Ontario policy studies.

The institute said the average Ontario family experienced a $1,674 increase in their total tax bill between 2003 and 2004, an amount greater than the $1,628 increase in the average family's cash income.

Most of the increase was caused by an increase in social security, pension, medical, and hospital taxes, much of which is a result of the recently announced Ontario Health Premium.

“And the new provincial health tax is going up again next year,” Mr. Mullins said. “Worse yet, every extra dollar earned by the average family between last year and now is being taken away by the rise in taxes.”

The largest portion (56 per cent) of the increase in the total tax bill can be attributed to the provincial government, while the rest (44 per cent) can be attributed to the federal government.

The municipal tax bill did not change for the average Ontario family from 2003 to 2004.

By comparison, the average Canadian family experienced a $1,327 increase in their total tax bill, of which 55.5 per cent can be attributed to the federal government, 40.7 per cent to the provincial governments, and 3.8 per cent to the municipal governments.

Tax freedom day for the average Ontario family peaked in 1999, when it fell on June 28th.

After a five-day decline from 1999 to 2003, tax freedom day increased in Ontario by four days this year.

According to Statistics Canada and government information, Ontario's tax freedom day fell on June 27 in 2000, June 23 in 2001, June 24 in 2002, and June 23 in 2003.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

At the rate it's going as of 2005 Canadians in the Ontario province will be working over half of their lives just to support their government.


Phaedrus