ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

How Much Tax Do We Actually Pay UK

Updated on March 17, 2016

How Much Tax Do You Pay?

We all work hard to earn a living but at the end of the month when we go to open up our pay packet we are always disappointed to find that the Government has been in there even before we have received a single penny.

Income tax and national insurance take a big bite out of our pay packets even before we get our money.

But the story does not end there, our Government love our money and tax us on almost everything that we buy or use.

So Just how much of our hard earned wage packets do we actually see after all of the taxes have been taken off?

This article is based on a monthly wage of £1500.


Taxman Loves Money

look at the smile on his face !
look at the smile on his face ! | Source

Income Tax and National Insurance

The Government love to publish figures such as the Average National Wage, which at the time of writing this, is supposed to be £26.500 but how many people do you know who actually earn that much money? A more realistic figure would be around £1500 per month which works out at £18000 per year.

This is why the figures here all represent earnings of £1500 a month.

If you earn £1500 a month then you will be paying around £123.00 in income tax and a further £99.00 in National insurance.

When you receive your wage slip at the end of the month these have already been deducted from your earnings and your take home pay is now at £1278.00.

This also means that you are working over 23.6 hours a month to pay the Government.

The Government are already £222.00 better off and this has all come out of your pocket.

They Even Taxed My Pie Chart

They tax almost everything
They tax almost everything | Source

Tax on Fuel

The Government have already taken £222.00 of our hard earned salary and now they want even more out of us.

To take your car to work, you of course need to fuel up and the tax or excise duty on fuel in Britain is astronomical for every litre of fuel we buy £0.57 goes to the Government, that means that if you pay £20.00 on fuel every week £11.60 of that goes to the Government over a month the Government has taken another £46.40 of your money.add that to the £222.00 the Government has already taken and you are now £268.40 worse off every month.

There is also road tax to be paid if you are a driver and the national average for road tax is £100 a year which is another £8.33 in the Governments coffers.

New monthly total now stands at £276.73

Do We Pay Too Much Tax In Britain?

Do We Pay Too Much Tax?

See results

Tax on weeklyShopping

Based on a salary of £1500 per month, the average weekly shopping bill comes to around £100.

VAT or Value Added Tax is just another way for the Government to get their hands on our cash, not everything we buy though charges VAT, but averaged out it works out that we pay 16.6% vat on a £100 shopping trip.

Over a month the Government are taking another £66.40 from your pocket making the new monthly total for the Government £343.13

You like a glass of wine after dinner so yo buy two £5.00 bottles of wine each week but did you know that there are two Government taxes on a bottle of wine? first of all you pay VAT of 20% and then you pay a duty of £1.77 on a £5.00 bottle of wine.

Tax on wine and Cigarettes

That gives the Taxman another £2.77 for every bottle of wine that you buy. over the month the Government gets another £22.16 from you. making the total £365.29.

If you smoke you also have two taxes to pay you have the 20% vat and then you have £3.52 excise duty on every packet therefore if you smoke one pack of 20 every day at £6.00 per pack, the Government is taking £4.72 in tax over a month that gives them £141.60.

The taxman is now taking over a third of your take home pay with £506.89 going to him.


Tax on Gas and Electricity

Tax on Electricity and Gas for a typical household is charged at 20% VAT and pay on average £666.00 for electricity per year and £487.00 for gas making a total of £1153.00.

These figures mean that the average household pays £4.80 tax on gas and electricity every month.

Tax in the home does not stop at gas and electricity and although council tax does not go directly to the government it goes to the local government and we all have to pay it.

The average Council tax in the UK is £99.67 every month bringing our monthly tax bill up to £611.36.


Tax on an Average Pay of £1500.00 Per Month

Taxable Items
Monthly
Yearly
Income tax
£123.00
£1476.00
National insurance
£99.00
£1188.00
Fuel
£46.40
£556.80
Road Tax
£8.33
£100
Shopping
£66.40
£796.80
Wine
£22.16
£265.92
Cigarettes
£141.60
£1699.20
Gas and Electricity
£4.80
£57.60
Council Tax
£99.67
£1196
Total
£611.36
£7336.32

When we look at these figures we realise that over 40% of our earnings go on taxes.

Total Tax Bill

For a person earning £18000.00 a year the total taxes that person pays comes to £7336.32 which means that from our income and outgoings the taxman takes 40.75%.

Please note that clothes and luxury items have not been covered in this article and for most cases you should add 20% vat to those totals.

Tax is so Taxing

How much I have left after shopping and taxes
How much I have left after shopping and taxes | Source

To be honest I am not a financial guru and I don't pretend to be otherwise, there are probably some taxes that are not accounted for in this article and if you notice any I will be happy to add them.

I wrote this article as a typical working guy who was wondering just how much of our earnings actually goes to pay taxes.

What I do not understand is that the Government take so much money from us and yet they are still billions of pounds in debt, maybe one day it will all even out, I hope so anyway.

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)