On Mon, 12 May 2008 11:18:46 +0100 '"The Rifleman"'
wrote this on uk.politics.misc:
>'Britons Paying More For Less And Less'
>Updated:10:31, Monday May 12, 2008
--snip copy/paste using wrong charset--
Rifleman, here's a copy/paste of this excellent article with
the £ symbols and numbers correctly displayed:
<quote>
"Britain's tax bill has increased by more than 50% in the past
ten years under Labour, it has been claimed.
A re****t by the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) pressure group said
that the total tax burden now stood at £517 billion a year -
the equivalent of £20,700 per household.
That compared with a tax take of £294 billion in 1997-98 when
Labour came to power, representing a 76% increase in cash terms
over the decade or 51% if inflation is taken into account.
The TPA said much of the increase was accounted for by
little-noticed "stealth taxes" or by "fiscal drag" - failing to
raise tax thresholds in line with earnings - which the TPA now
estimates accounts for £14 billion of the annual tax take.
The fastest growing tax was said to be stamp duty which now brings
in £14.3 billion compared to a take of £3.5 billion ten years ago
- an increase of more than 300%.
At the same time, the TPA said that fees and charges by local
authorities and other public bodies had been "ratcheted up" and
become much more widespread.
It said that school dinners charges had risen 50% over the decade
to £1 billion a year, parking charges and fines had risen to over
£1 billion, while charges for hospital car parks now raise now
over £100 million in England alone.
The re****t's author, Mike Denham, a former Treasury economist,
said that the Government had used "every trick in the book" to
drive up the tax burden.
"People are increasingly beset by record levels of taxation and
growing service charges, but there has been no improvement in
services in return," he said.
"We find ourselves paying more and more for less and less. With
rocky economic times ahead, this rate of taxation simply cannot
be sustained."
</quote>
--
socialism is like chronic heart disease ...
you may not know you suffer from it, but it'll kill you in the end.
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