"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.

Peter Smyth

Richard J. wrote:

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.

That's right... A standard rate income tax payer actually pays over 40% in
tax when you take into account indirect taxes

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)

"Nick Cooper" wrote in
message ...

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....
--
Nick Cooper

Surely the part of the reason for a hike in petrol duty it to combat the
ever increasing use of petrol and the environmental damage it causes.
Let the user pay for it not everyone else.

DFF

In article , Richard
J. wrote:
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.

Even then the Adam Smith Institute is honest enough to point out on
its website that any government can lower taxes by increasing
borrowing and the true date should arguably be calculated by adding
on borrowing to the total tax collected:

"Calculated this way, the 'true' Tax Freedom Day for 2004 would be
11 June. That is a considerable improvement on the budget-deficit
adjusted TFDs of the early 1990s, which were in mid-to-late June.
But it is a sharp deterioration from 1998, when the adjusted date
was 24 May"

http://www.adamsmith.org/tax/technical.php

I don't expect Michael Howard to be telling us this though!

One wonders what TFD in the USA would be if their trillion dollar
deficit was added back?

--
Tony Bryer

For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest
oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP. If they are not selling
any

This scheme brought to you by the Association of Other Than the Two Biggest
Oil Companies.

In article ,
Stimpy wrote:
Richard J. wrote:

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.

That's right... A standard rate income tax payer actually pays over 40% in
tax when you take into account indirect taxes

You pay somewhere around that in _direct_ taxes - don't forget National
Insurance.

Nick
--
"And we will be restoring normality just as soon as we are sure what is
neurotypical anyway. Thank you". -- not quite DNA