Government taxes half of £40k salaries for revenue recharge

The average high category taxpayer in the UK has to pay as much as half his salary directly back to the government simply to be tax compliant under the Inland Revenue.

This is the picture from accountants, Smith & Williamson, which show that a family man who earns £40,000 a year, typically pays almost 50p of the pound through direct and indirect taxation to government agencies.

This amount is a rise of almost half as much again from the 35p in the pound rate, a family man would have been paying in 1997 - the year Labour came to power.

Since then 66 stealth taxes have been introduced for basic rate taxpayers, ensuring that a man on a salary of £25,000 a year would have seen his tax obligations climb by almost a seventh.