Peter Smyth wrote:
"Richard J." wrote in message
...
Stimpy wrote:
Nick Cooper wrote:

And if they're successful, whichever government it is will just
tag the lost revenue elsewhere. In a way, it might be better to
abolish all "hidden" taxes and just bung everything on income
tax, but they'll never do that, because it would make the
overall burden too apparent....

Coincidentally, for standard rate taxpayers, today is the day when
you stop earning money for the government and start earning it for
yourself.

In each year, almost 5 months worth of your salary goes in tax!

That can't be right; it would imply an average tax rate of 41%. I
think you'll find that such calculations start at the beginning of
the UK tax year, 6th April.

No the calculations start from 1st January, see
http://www.adamsmith.org/tax/

I think that you are only considering income tax and forgetting all
the indirect taxes like VAT, petrol tax, stamp duty etc.

From your reference to "standard rate taxpayers", I thought you were
concerned only with PAYE. In reality, there are so many other factors
involved apart from one's top rate of income tax that it's meaningless
to pretend that Tax Freedom Day has any significance for an individual,
though it may be useful as a statistical index. Interesting, though,
that the site claims that TFD is actually earlier in the UK than in the
rest of Europe.

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)