About Tax Freedom Day In The UK

Definition: 'Tax Freedom Day' is the day in the year when the average income earner has earned enough to pay his taxes. assuming he doesn't spend a penny - the rest of the year is all gravy (sure...)
This article about Tax Freedom Day in the UK mentions Gordon Smith's stealth taxes (e.g. increasing National Insurance contributions, air passenger duty,...)
A recent program on Radio 4 that I heard, describes three periods since the end of the Second World War.
1945-1965 - income tax to pay for health service and other Welfare State benefits.
1965-1985 - no tax increase and letting services coast along.
1985-2010 - services grinding to a halt because equipment, building, etc breaking down but no-one can win an election by proposing an increase in income tax, (that is how Labour failed in 1990) - so when Labour won in 1997, they used stealth taxes to pay for social programmes.

from www.adamsmith.org

A history of tax freedom day

Tax Freedom Day came later and later in the 1960s, though there was some respite in the early years of the 1970s: while the tax burden in most industrialised states was tending to increase, the then British government actually decreased it.  There was another short and less pronounced reduction in the burden in the three years following the 1975 peak.  The general trend, however, was for Tax Freedom Day to fall later and later during the years from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s. More recently we saw a 10-year period during which Tax Freedom Day broadly moved earlier and earlier in the calendar, from a high of 15 June in 1982, to 22 May in 1993 and 1994.  Since 1994, Tax Freedom Day has again generally – if erratically – moved later in the calendar. In 2008 and 2009, it suddenly jumped back in the calendar. As explained above, this was a direct result of the financial crisis. Once the economy recovers, Tax freedom Day is likely to move later in the calendar again.

See more at www.adamsmith.org