'Tax freedom' a day later
A right wing economic think-tank claims that British taxpayers have to work an extra day in the year before the money they earn goes into their own pockets.
Link: Landmark tax day now later
According to the Adam Smith Institute, Britons can celebrate ‘tax freedom day’, today, after calculating that 155 days of wages a year go to the government.
Next year the ASI expects tax freedom day to move to 7 June because of government spending plans and to 9 June in 2005. It also calculated the US tax freedom day as 19 April, six weeks earlier than the UK tax date.
Eamonn Butler, ASI director, said: ‘People often say that we seem to spend more time working for the taxman than they do working for themselves.
‘That’s an exaggeration, but it’s close to the mark, since we do spend 43% of our time working just to pay taxes.’