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The UK Tax Freedom Day Clock 2011

Update: The Adam Smith Institute just announced that in 2011, UK Tax Freedom Day will fall on May 30.

John Gaver
February 27, 2011

John GaverFor most of 2007 and part of 2008, my wife and I lived in London (Pimlico) and we made a lot of friends there. We also learned first hand, just how much worse the tax burden is in the United Kingdom, than in the United States.

So, since we at ActionAmerica.org just finished recoding our US Tax Freedom Day Clock, which we have long maintained, we decided to create a version of the Tax Freedom Clock, based upon economic data from the UK, for our friends in the UK.

In the USA, an organization called the Tax Foundation has calculated and published Tax Freedom Day every year, since 1971 and before that, it was calculated and published by Florida businessman, Dallas Hostetler, going all the way back to 1948. Fortunately, we didn't have to look far to find a good source for UK Tax Freedom Day.

The Adam Smith Institute has been calculating and publishing UK Tax Freedom Day since 1991, using much the same proven process as the Tax Foundation uses for calculating US Tax Freedom Day.

The Adam Smith Institute just announced that the 2011 UK Tax Freedom Day will fall on May 30. This is the earliest UK Tax Freedom Day since 1973. However, that early date belies a raging storm of taxes on the horizon. Although they didn't state it in this years report, the Adam Smith Institute has pointed out in the past, that the date that they provide for UK Tax Freedom Day does not inculde deficit spending. It it did include deficit spending, then UK Tax Freedom day would fall well into June or even July.

These numbers, though much worse than the US numbers, follow the same pattern as the US numbers. In the USA, we won't know when our Tax Freedom Day will occur, till around the end or March. But last year, our deficit-included date was the worst ever.

The Tax Freedom Day Clock at the top of this page continuously displays the months, days, hours, minutes and seconds till or since the 2011 UK Tax Freedom Day. The UK Tax Freedom Clock will reset on January first and start counting down to the same day next year, until such time as the Adam Smith Institute announces the new year's UK Tax Freedom Day and this clock is updated to reflect that date.

Just remember that we are in the USA now and as such, are not kept apprised of all UK news in as timely a manner as those of you who live across the pond. So, if you ever see that this clock is off by a day or two and the new year's UK Tax Freedom Day has been recently announced, please use the Feedback link at the top of this page, to let us know that the new date has been announced. We'll update it as soon as possible, thereafter.

When looking at this clock and thinking about UK Tax Freedom Day, the question that you must ask yourself is, "Are the services that I receive from the government worth almost half of my work days, each year?"

Or, to put it another way, "Are the services that I receive from the government worth almost half of my working life?"

How many of those lost days at work went to line the pockets of a bureaucrat or government contractor? Would you have spent any of your hard-earned money on any of those pork projects? Couldn't you provide or purchase many of those government services for yourself, at a higher quality and for much less money and have more left over to improve your lifestyle? Are you getting a fair return in services, from the government, for all that work that you do for them? Think about it...

We have also created the UK Tax Freedom Day Clock widget for Macintosh and the UK Tax Freedom Day Clock web widget. They both work the same way as the clock at the top of this page. They both also automatically update to use the new year every January 1, at midnight and they both automatically update to reflect each year's new date for for UK Tax Freedom Day, shortly after that information is released, so you don't have to download a new version every year.

Our thanks go out to the Adam Smith Institute, for their efforts to collect the data and make the calculations to determine UK Tax Freedom Day, every year. If you have not visited their site, we encourage you to do so.


Note 1: The Tax Freedom Day Clock uses JavaScript to effect the countdown, so your browser must support JavaScript and Javascript support must be turned on. If you don't see the days to Tax Freedom above, it's probably because either you, someone else who uses your computer or a piece of software has disabled Javascript, in your browser or although it's very unlikely, you may be using a very old browser that does not support JavaScript. Although Action America is designed to be easily used and navigated without JavaScript functionality, several features such as this one will not show up, if JavaScript is not enabled.

Note 2: We have occasionally had people contact us, early in the year, telling us that our Tax Freedom Day Clock is off by one hour. The clock has, in each case, been accurate. We want to remind our readers, who might want to check our calculations, not to forget that there is a one hour time change, between January 1 and Tax Freedom Day. Our clock counts down actual hours, rather than adjusted hours. However, if you do think that you see an error in the clock, please don't hesitate to contact us. After all, although we have tested it extensively, the coding is all new and a minor glitch might have slipped through our testing.

Note 3: After some effort, we developed a work-around for a bug in Internet Explorer (IE), that had initially kept IE users from seeing the above clock. We tested this clock on eleven major browsers, on Windows, Mac and Linux platforms and IE was the only one that was affected. Although IE users can now see this clock, it is partially because of many standards adherence issues like this and myriad security issues in Internet Explorer, that we strongly recommend that IE users download and use either the Firefox of Safari browser. Note too, that both also load complex pages much faster than IE.

 

Copyright 2019 John Gaver
All rights reserved


See related articles and supporting documents:

1986-2008 IRS Collections Data by Income Category
Obama agenda drives record expatriation
Tick - Tick - Tick / The Economy Bomb
Tax Freedom Day Builds Case for FairTax
US Tax Freedom Day Clock Web Widget
UK Tax Freedom Day Clock Web Widget
US Tax Freedom Day Clock
US Tax Freedom Day Clock Widget (for Mac)
UK Tax Freedom Day Clock Widget (for Mac)
The Privacy Factor
More Attacks on the Wealthy
US Taxpatriates List
2000 Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration & Naturalization Service (6.2mb PDF)
2003 World Wealth Report (Press Release)
American Citizens Residing Abroad (US Bureau of Consular Affairs)
Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 (26 USC 877(a)(1))
Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 USC 1182(a)(10)(E))
Heroes Earnings Assistance & Relief Tax Act (Public Law 110-245) (8 USC 1182(a)(10)(E))
The Economic Impact of Replacing Federal Income Taxes
      with a Sales Tax (CATO)
Fair Tax Act of 2011 (H.R. 25)
Americans for Fair Taxation
National Retail Sales Tax Alliance

Recommended Books:

The Rich Don't Pay Tax …Or Do They?
The Fair Tax Book
Fair Tax: The Truth
How to Hide Your A$$et$ and Disappear
Escape From America

See Expatriate sites:

The Sovereign Society
Escape Artist
Expat World
Second Passports

Contact your Congressman here.

 

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