Campaign: 'Half working day going to taxman'

Working Britons spend more than half their time paying the taxman before they can earn money for themselves, anti-tax campaigners claim.

By The Newsroom

Published 29th May 2010, 00:52 BST

Updated 29th May 2010, 00:52 BST

The TaxPayers' Alliance has released a video showing the "burden" on an average employee ahead of the Adam Smith Institute's annual tax freedom day, which this year falls on Sunday.

The institute calculated that for 149 days of the year – from January 1 to May 29 – every penny earned by UK residents would be taken in taxes for Government spending.

The new film, which appears on the alliance website and YouTube, shows a typical worker called "Adam" taking until 1.21pm to effectively pay his tax bill.

By calculating how much tax is paid by an average, single British worker the TaxPayers' Alliance concluded such a worker would spend three hours and 39 minutes until he goes home at 5pm on generating his own income.

The video says it takes one hour and 16 minutes to pay income tax, a further 43 minutes to pay National Insurance, with VAT bills taking another 40 minutes.

Another 13 minutes goes towards his 825 annual motoring taxes.