mutleyfour

Apologies if I came over as patronising, but some of us working in the public sector do tend to get tunnel vision regarding taxation (ie only looking from the giving, rather than the receiving end).

Your indolent 40-year old represents a very small minority of the population. The beauty (for want of a better word) of our taxation system is that, even those who are not working are paying taxes in one form or another.

Well for a start you could read your P60, which will tell you (albeit for the last year):

a. How much you were paid.

b. How much tax you paid.

c. How much NIC you paid.


... er, that's it really.... or if you wanted a continuous answer, tot up the figures from pay slips as they arrive!

teeteringhead, I don't think you actually read the question and you certainly didn't read all the other replies.

Ultimately you do not of course really get to keep anything it is all converted into goods. At every turn there is a tax take. Even VAT free items, like newspapers, have a tax slice of corporation tax, employer's NI contributions, employees' tax, and even VAT and NI on what the employee earns and spends.

I guess the short answer is that ALL your money, less the cost of material bought in from outside the UK, like Kenyan Beans or your overseas holiday, finishes up in the treasury.

The money for the Kenyan beans finishes up in their treasury, a swiss bank account, or back in UK for goods they buy.

My apologies - always read the question first!! I was distracted by having a P60 in front of me..... which was scary enough. The original question is a very difficult one to answer, as so much accrues to Mr B @No 11. But not all PN, I suppose you would have to allow for the amount your wealth in terms of goods and property had increased (less the amount a future Chancellor would take from your heirs).

Reminds me of a Budget Day remark made by Robin Day many years ago, in anticipation of a so-called "giveaway" budget.

RD: "All this talk of the Chancellor "giving back" so many millions is of course rubbish. What may happen, on very rare occasions, is that a Chancellor may decide to take less!"

The 40% figure on the website quoted by Dangerman is a percentage of GDP, so includes everyone in the country be they employed, on benefits, seeking asylum, etc.

For someone who, like the majority of aircrew, is in the higher rate tax band, the last figure I heard quoted (sorry, can't remember when... few months ago, Radio 2, probably Jeremy Vine) is that on average, over 70% of your gross income eventually ends up in the treasury's coffers one way or the other.

Sounds a lot at first but it's quite plausible... consider how much you actually get to see in your wallet after your own income tax, NI, council tax etc has been taken out. Say, for example, you spent all that on beer (may even be a reasonable scenario). After the VAT and Excise Duty that goes straight to the treasury, some of the cost of each pint will go towards the salary of the lovely lass who pulls it, and some of that will then go to the government as her income tax, etc.

So one way of looking at it is that you only get to "keep" 30p of your hard-earned pound.

Dave