Great British Shakedown: UK Worker Loses 65.88% of Income to Taxes

There is a peculiar madness in the British tax system, a bureaucratic beast stitched together from 18th-century war debts, post-imperial guilt, and enough Orwellian doublespeak to make Stalin blush. A patchwork abomination of taxes born of Pitt the Younger’s wet dream and raised on Rachel Reeves’ cold cup of tea along with her pound of flesh. You don’t pay taxes in Britain — you are ritually flayed alive in slow motion.

The tax burden foisted on the average British citizen has never been higher, but wait — it’s still rising at an exponential level never before seen. Labour promised growth in the economy, fat chance of that when working people are being fleeced of nearly every single penny they earn.

1. Income Tax – £10,631

First conjured up by Pitt to fund his sabre-rattling against Napoleon, the Income Tax now eats £10,631 a year from every poor bastard who dares to earn more than £12,570. Climb above £100k, and they start clawing back taxes from your personal allowance like a vulture pecking your eyeballs before you’re dead. Total haul? £301.9 billion. That’s not a tax — it’s a fucking national mugging.

2. National Insurance – £6,070

Ah yes, the glorious fiction of “health insurance.” Promised as a safety net in 1911, but the net’s been torn to shreds, and you’re free-falling into the oversubscribed welfare abyss while the government siphons £172.4 billion straight into the Treasury’s gin fund. 8% from you, 15% from your boss, and all of it pissed away on consultants and administrative cosplay. The NHS is a fiscal black hole where billions are poured in, but it still barely functions.

3. VAT – £6,025

The vampire squid of taxation. VAT is everywhere and on everything. The tax you forget but never escape. Born out of EU madness in 1973, now weaponised as a fiscal chainsaw. £171 billion down the rabbit hole, and you’re left wondering why your baked beans cost £2.80.

4. Council Tax – £1,768

Nothing says “local democracy” like paying nearly two grand a year to have the council ignore potholes that multiply like rats, and streetlights that only work during daylight. A £50 billion racket administered by people who couldn’t organise a piss-up in a pub, let alone a budget. Vast salaries and disgustingly huge gold-plated pensions for council workers who only work three days a week from home or a beach somewhere.

5. Corporation Tax – £1,448

Ah yes, the great capitalist illusion. You don’t pay this one directly — but you do. Every loaf, every pint, every Uber ride jacked up to protect shareholder margins and foreign profits. £91.4 billion skimmed off the top, and only 45% lands here. The rest sails into the Cayman sunset.

6. Business Rates – £880

Paid by companies, passed onto you. Every sandwich and shoelace stuffed with embedded taxes so deep you’d need a forensic accountant and a shaman to trace it.

7. Fuel Duty – £869

Every time you fill your tank, about half the cost goes straight into the treasury’s pocket. Not even subtle any more — just pure highway robbery with a receipt. Stand and deliver — that’s £24.7 billion just for the privilege of going to work.

8. Stamp Duty – £489

You want to own something? Buying a house? Fork over thousands upon thousands into the coffers of the treasury. The government raises £13.8 billion – an average of £489 per household. If you’re lucky, you’ll pay this while high on painkillers or heroin at a solicitor’s office somewhere in Croydon.

9. Capital Gains Tax – £460

Selling an asset for more than you bought it for? Here comes the taxman with his cricket bat and a form in triplicate. Mercifully, your main home is spared — for now.

10. Alcohol Duty – £436

Sin taxes they call it — more like a grief tithe. £12.6 billion ripped from the throats of the working class, pint by pint, shot by shot. The bar tab from hell.

The list goes on: Vehicle Excise Duty (£320), Tobacco (£279), TV Licences (£133) (paying for a state broadcaster most people haven’t watched since Tony Blair was blurting on about 15-minute missile attacks), Plastic Bag Taxes, Windfall Levies on Wind Power, Air passenger duty, Social/environmental levies on energy bills, Betting/gambling taxes, Emissions trading scheme, Energy profits levy, Digital services tax, Electricity generator levy, Landfill tax, Apprenticeship levy, Aggregates levy, Soft drinks industry levy, Sugar taxes, Residential property development tax, Diverted profits tax, Economic crime levy, Customs duties, Insurance premium tax, Banking surcharges, and even a Climate Change Levy that somehow makes you poorer while the planet still burns.

By the end, you’re coughing up £31,623.50 per household. Not for luxuries or fairness, but to prop up a monstrous plundering machine that treats citizens like dairy cows and spreadsheets like scripture.

“Freedom isn’t free,” they say. No, but it does seem to cost aN ARM, A LEG, AN EYE, A NOSE, AN EAR, AND YOUR VERY SOUL.

So file your forms, tighten your belts, and pass the gin. Big Brother and the Big State needs their cut — and they don’t give any change back.