As of June 2024, this is out of date. Please refer to Tax Freedom Day 2024 for the updated statistics.

TAX BURDEN HIGHER THAN AT ANY TIME SINCE 1995

Taxpayers worked 150 days for the Boris and the taxman this year, today is the first day they start working for themselves

• Tax Freedom Day falls on May 31st

• Brits work 150 days of the year solely to pay taxes, pandemic spending and no plans to reign in political projects means taxes likely to rise in future years

• Tax demands are at a record high, even prior to taking into account the full scale of the pandemic. MPs provide their comments on the need to reduce the burden on businesses, hard working families, and the need for the Conservative Party to return to conservative and free market principles

Tax Freedom Day is a measure of when Britons stop paying tax and start putting their earnings into their own pocket. This year the Adam Smith Institute has estimated that every penny the average person earned for working up to and including May 30th went to the taxman—from May 31st onwards they are finally earning for themselves. 

British taxpayers have worked a gruelling 150 days for the taxpayers this year. Brits will fork out £730 billion to the Treasury this year, over two-fifths of every pound we earn. More of us are working for Boris than worked for the taxman in any year under New Labour, the Coalition or Theresa May’s governments. Britain’s tax burden is moving in the wrong direction. 

Unfortunately for Britons, this Tax Freedom Day cannot yet fully take into account the tax costs of measures taken to tackle COVID19 — and the Government has been borrowing hundreds of billions more to finance the covid response. All borrowing is a form of taxation deferred and the hundreds of billions of pounds borrowed to tackle this viral threat will only begin to be borne in future years and as the government begins to unlock economic activity. 

Tax Freedom Day is over a month and a half later in the UK than it is in Biden’s America, where workers started taking home their own pay from April 16th this year.

With talks of global minimum taxes on the businesses that allowed millions of us in the UK to work from home and still get fed, entertained and connected, the minimum governments could do is look again at the costs they impose on all of us. As the pandemic comes to an end we need a new approach that lets taxpayers keep more of their money, which grows our economy, creates jobs and boosts wages.

It’s easy to spend other people’s money. What we need now is a plan to reduce the burdens on working people, that lets them keep a little more of their hard-earned money.

Dr Eamonn Butler, Founder and Director of the Adam Smith Institute, said:

“Borrowing off the backs of others is easy, making sure the books are balanced is the hard part. We can all forgive the government reaching for easy credit in a crisis but the fact of the matter is that the cost of government has been on a rising path for years now. As politicians prepare to say that businesses and families need to prepare for global minimum taxes, the least they could do is to look again at the burdens they’re putting onto all of us to pay for their largesse.”

Tom Clougherty, head of tax at the Centre for Policy Studies, said:

"The latest Tax Freedom Day in decades should serve as a stark reminder that this isn't the time for tax increases. Instead, the Government needs to come up with a plan to overhaul the tax system – so that it can raise money as efficiently as possible, while also reducing the burden on people's earnings and investments. Without radical reform, we risk ending up in a vicious circle of tax hikes and weak economic growth."

Mark Littlewood, Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs, said:

"That Tax Freedom Day falls so late in the year is a sign this government is failing to deliver on what is left of its free market rhetoric. We in fact live under a high-tax, high-spend government that is on track to create an overall level of taxation to rival Clement Atlee's socialist administration. We are approaching, if not at, our taxable limit and repairing the public finances post-COVID will require expenditure cuts, not further tax hikes."

Duncan Simpson, research director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 

"Tax Freedom Day couldn't come a moment too soon. Sadly it gets later and later every year, as struggling families are battered by endless hikes and taxes reaching the highest sustained level they've been for 70 years. Hard hit households need tax cuts now more than ever, to ease the burden and help them recover from the covid crisis.”

Rt Hon Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Member of Parliament for Chingford and Woodford Green, said:

“I congratulate the Adam Smith Institute for their brilliant work in bringing together calculations of the whole tax burden so that we understand better just how much tax we pay to Government. We can see from their analysis that the tax burden has risen over the years. Since I first came into Parliament, we are now working for the Government for a whole extra month before we are working for ourselves. This indicates the scale of Tax rises through both Labour and Conservative Governments. The chart the Adam Smith Institute have produced makes it very clear and easy to understand that the tax burden has risen steadily over the years and for that I congratulate the Adam Smith Institute. I hope that the Government will look carefully at this and understand that no matter the debates at general elections -  the truth is that tax has risen.”

James Gray, Member of Parliament for North Wiltshire, said:

“Like my fellow Glaswegian, Adam Smith, I am a strong supporter of less government, greater individual freedom, lower 'safety nets' provided by society and as a result of that a lower need for National or local taxation.  Freedom Day should, in my view, be as close to Ne'erday as it is possible to be.”

Tim Loughton, Member of Parliament for East Worthing & Shoreham, said:

“Tax Freedom day is a stark reminder just how heavily individuals are taxed and it is always alarming when this date gets progressively later in the year. Good Conservative governments acknowledge that people are incentivised by lower and fairer tax rates and this usually results in a higher tax take to the Exchequer overall in any case, so notwithstanding the current strains on our finances caused by the pandemic I hope we return to good Conservative government principles as soon as possible.”

Alex Stafford, Member of Parliament for Rother Valley, said:

"As the days get shorter and shorter, so Tax Freedom Day gets further and further away from the start of the year. True freedom is allowing us to keep more of our own money in our pockets - so that we, rather than the Government, can choose where it goes. With the economic impact of Covid being felt, now more than ever, do we need true control over our own finances." 

David Simmonds, Member of Parliament for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, said:

"Everyone in politics needs to be thinking about how hard someone has had to work to earn the money that government is spending, and ask, if they were in my position, would they agree that this spend represents value for money?" 

Greg Smith, Member of Parliament for Buckingham, said:

“High taxes are a barrier to growth, a disincentive to invest and calamitous for family finances.  With tax freedom day coming later and later, it is imperative to cut taxes and go for growth.” 

Stephen McPartland, Member of Parliament for Stevenage, said:

“The only way to level up the country is to let people keep more money in their own pockets to spend in their local communities. The farcical behaviour of local and national government on fantasy projects and schemes, which sound good in a press release but in reality act as barriers to employment and investment locally, must stop.”

Sir Desmond Swayne, Member of Parliament for New Forest West:

“Individuals make better decisions about what is best for them and their families. The more we are allowed to do so, the better we will be for it. The more we have to work just to pay for government and it's priorities, so proceeding, our initiative and enterprise is diminished.”

Andrew Lewer, Member of Parliament for Northampton South, said: 

"The trend for Tax Freedom Day to get ever later in the year was well established before the trauma of Covid-19 hit us. We have had a Conservative-led Government since 2010 and so we are well overdue for this trend to be reversed. I hope that those in leading positions in Government will be mindful that increased tax RATES often do not mean increased tax TAKES." 

Christopher Chope, Member of Parliament for Christchurch, said:

“The ASI analysis is a timely wake up call to Conservatives  of the need to  take back control from the State .Taxation is the enemy of personal liberty because it transfers choice and responsibility for spending  decisions from families and individuals to wasteful bureaucrats.”

Steve Baker, Member of Parliament for Wycombe, said:

“It doesn’t just feel like it, tax freedom day does arrive later every year under Conservative Governments. This cannot go on. In order for us all to be prosperous, eventually Conservatives must stand up for the formula we have always believed in - that means lower taxes.”

Bob Blackman, Member of Parliament for Harrow East, said:

“Over the past year, significant revisions to the net national income stats have pushed Tax Freedom Day back by around a week In 2020, we worked 150 days just to pay our tax bill.

“From May 30th onwards, we’re working for ourselves. Tax Freedom Day is now later than at any time since 1995. High taxes discourage work, investment, and economic growth. We must encourage everyone to take TaxAction by making the most of their tax reliefs. Assuming that people stick to those things approved by HMRC then there are several legitimate schemes an individual can take advantage of to reduce their tax bill.”

John Baron, Member of Parliament for Basildon and Billericay, said:

“Although taxes support our vital public services, it’s nevertheless good news that we are all now ‘working for ourselves'. The Government should work hard to keep taxes low – and must remember the lessons of the Laffer Curve.

Robert Goodwill, Member of Parliament for Scarborough and Whitby, said:

"Tax Freedom Day is a brilliant way of bringing home to ordinary people just how burdened we are with tax.  The pandemic has resulted in unprecedented peace time levels of public expenditure, but we do need to bring this under control and ensure that in future Tax Freedom Day can be earlier in the year and not later!" 

Geoffrey Clifton Brown, Member of Parliament for the Cotswolds, said: 

“As Deputy Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, I am extremely conscious that every pound spent by Government eventually must be raised in taxation. It is probably inevitable that some taxes will have to rise to pay for the enormous expenditure throughout the pandemic. But the long-term aim of Government should always be to keep taxation as low as possible, conducive to providing a reasonable level of public services. The individual or the family always know how to spend their own money more wisely than the Government.”

Henry Smith, Member of Parliament for Crawley, said:

"The fact that almost half a year elapses before we are in essence free of paying tax, is a sober reminder of the state's financial  burdens on us. A lower tax economy produces growth, which in turn creates a greater common wealth - we do well to remember this, especially given the serious demands on us as individuals and as a nation at this time." 

Alun Cairns, Member of Parliament for Vale of Glamorgan, said:

“It’s hard to believe that we work 150 days just to pay our taxes.  This brings into focus the principle of effort and reward for the benefit of all in society.  I pay tribute to the Adam Smith Institute for maintaining focus on this important acid test of fiscal discipline.  We all recognise public spending commitments but Tax Freedom Day underlines that we all pay, in the end.” 

Notes to editors:

For further comments or to arrange an interview, contact Matt Kilcoyne, matt@adamsmith.org | 07904099599

The Adam Smith Institute is a free market, neoliberal think tank based in London. It advocates classically liberal public policies to create a richer, freer world.