Congratulations to our "respected" Labour administration, they have laboured hard over the last 12 years to create a tax system that is truly record breaking.Something to be proud of!
LexisNexis report that the 2009 edition of its tax guide, Tolley's Yellow Tax Handbook, contains a stonking 11,520 pages; twelve years ago it was a "mere" 4,998 pages.
It doesn't take a genius, or even a politician, to work out that despite claims by some in the Treasury and HMRC that strives are being made to simplify the tax system, the reality is quite simply the reverse.
The UK now has the longest tax code in the world.
Well done Brown and Darling!
As I have noted many times before, Brown doesn't do "simple". Until he and his party are kicked out of orifice, things will only become ever more complex and unwieldy.
Tax does have to be taxing.
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I wanted one of those enlargers but I could never find one small enough to fit.
ReplyDeleteOn more serious note, nothing will ever be done to simplify the tax system. The unthinking public who imagine the tax they pay is what is shown on their pay cheques might realise what they are really paying.
ReplyDeleteWith income tax, NI, VAT, council tax, corporation tax (passed to the customer in higher prices), interest charges, road tax and the numerous other specific taxes\fees I reckon even middle earners are being clobbered for over 60%.
Xoggoth,
ReplyDeleteI am on about the average wage (not a 40 percent tax payer) and once calculated my tax over a year, including NI, VAT, council tax, stamp duty (divided by ten years, even though I only expect to stay in this house for about four or five), car tax, fuel tax, insurance tax, airport tax etc etc. It came to just over 53 percent (and that was of EVERYTHING I earn, not on what I earn over and above the 'personal allowance'). Frightening.
Doesn't suprise me. Govt. expenditure is now around 34% GDP. Then consider the percentage of the population not of working age or of working age but on welfare.
ReplyDelete