Juts picked this snippet up from the Tax Payer's Alliance latest report. Even when inflation is taken into account Britain’s tax burden has
soared by over 50% in the last ten years under the Labour government, the report claims.
In its report, the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA), a lobbyist for fairer
taxes, said a combination of up-front and stealth levies has led to a
total tax bill of £517billion a year.
In other words, a single British household has seen their annual tax
bill rise, helped by fiscal drag, to an extraordinary £20, 700.
“Shamefully,” a significant part of the tax rise has been in the form
of ‘stealth’ taxes, the report says, pointing to the 10p sting in last
year’s so-called “tax-cutting” budget.
Alongside stealth taxes, there have been “sly increases” in the shape
of fiscal drag – the failure to adjust tax thresholds in line with
earnings and asset prices.
Over the last decade, the TPA said Labour has hiked taxes in this way
by £14 billion a year, partly explaining the group’s view that
taxpayers have been ‘ripped off.’
Wallets have been hit even harder because taxpayers have been made to
pay additional fees or charges for what used to be ‘free’ or virtually
free public services.
For example, the Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency now takes £300 million
per annum from the sale of driving licences, while its business in
personalised number plates brings in another £100 million per annum.
Passport charges are another good earner, the report said pointing out
that in 1997 a passport cost £18, but last year the cost soared to £72,
a quadrupling in price.
These charges now cost taxpayers nearly £500 million per annum, and the
TPA said it fears further costs could be on the way given the increasing expense of ID cards. (If this touches a nerve - might be worth checking out No2ID - I'm already signed up!)
But it is the NHS and local authorities which have proved the biggest money-grabbers, the report says.
Its authors said school dinners charges have risen 50% in ten years,
parking charges and fines have risen to over £1 billion and hospital
car parks raise over £100m in England alone.
Mike Denham, a former economist at the Treasury who authored the
report, reflected that “the government has used every trick in the book
to drive up the tax burden.”
“Ordinary families are paying a heavy price,” he said. “People are
increasingly beset by record levels of taxation and growing service
charges, but there has been no improvement in services in return.
“We find ourselves paying more and more for less and less. With rocky
economic times ahead, this rate of taxation simply cannot be sustained.”
Matthew Elliott, the TPA's chief executive, believes the British public are being “ripped off in the most shameful way.”
“The cloak and dagger methods the Government is using the squeeze money out of hard working people are deplorable,” he said.
“With fewer police stations, limited GPs’ hours, libraries closing,
rarer bin collections and a host of other cuts we are getting less for
our money than ever before.
"People are facing higher fuel bills, more expensive food and much
bigger mortgage bills – and on top of all that they are being stealth
taxed and charged more than ever before. This con has got to stop.”
Here here I say! Roll on 2010 (or preferably sooner!)
