According to the Adam Smith Institute (ASI), if you look at the tax you pay, in terms of how many days you are effectively working just to pay your tax bill, then this year the average taxpayer will work for the government from New Year’s Day until May 30th.
This means that as a nation as a whole, we’ll be working for the government for 149 days – 3 days more than last year – mostly because of the rise in VAT in January 2010.
This is much shorter period of time than the 1980s, when Thatcher’s economic restructuring programme was in progress (in 1982 it would have taken over 170 days to achieve tax freedom), but today’s Tax Freedom Day comes over a month later than in the 1960s (in 1964 it would have taken less than 120 days).
According to the ASI, which has been calculating Britain’s Tax Freedom Day since 1991 “The biggest part of the UK tax burden is income tax, which Britons will have to work 41 days to pay in 2010. They will work another 27 days to pay National Insurance Contributions, and 21 to pay VAT”.
The calculation doesn’t take account of the government’s budget deficit.
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