Tax at a 50 year high

Tax burden reaches 50-year highThe tax paid by British households and businesses has reached 34.6% of GDP, according to data analysed by the TaxPayers’ Alliance. The figure compares with 32.7% in 2015 and 28.5% in 1993. John O’Connell, the chief executive of the Alliance, said: “For all the talk of increasing taxes to help the poorest the truth is that the steady increase of the tax burden often hits precisely those families the hardest. Other countries like the US and Australia are cutting taxes and we should look to replicate that to boost the economy and ease the burden on the most hard-up taxpayers.” The Alliance proposes cutting the burden to 29.9% of GDP through the abolition of CGT, IHT, air passenger duty and stamp duty, and halving national insurance and cutting income tax. A Sunday Telegraph leader posits that: “Cutting taxes is a moral duty: excessive levies sever the connection between hard work and reward, and disincentivise effort.”