Tax on test: do Britons pay more than most?
We examine how the average burden on British people earning 25,000, 40,000 and 100,000 compares with taxes paid by similar earners in Europe, Australia and the US
Labour's plan to tax incomes over 80,000 more heavily is a "massive tax hike for the middle classes" that will "take Britain back to the misery of the 1970s", according to rightwing newspapers. But are British households that heavily taxed?
A comparison of personal tax rates across Europe, Australia and the US by Guardian Money reveals how average earners in Britain on salaries of 25,000, or "middle-class" individuals on 40,000, enjoy among the lowest personal tax rates of the advanced countries, while high earners on 100,000 see less of their income taken in tax than almost anywhere else in Europe.