Date published: 2006/03/03
The BBC says:
Four out of five people are set to pay more tax than they need to this year, an Independent Financial Advice Promotion (IFAP) survey suggests.
Failure to claim tax credits and poor inheritance tax planning are amongst the main reasons for people paying too much, the group added.
In total, the IFAP said that Britons waste £7.6bn a year in unnecessary tax.
David Elms, chief executive of IFAP, blamed public "apathy or confusion" for too much tax being paid.
A silly story. Obviously if by some miracle everybody managed to claim back every penny from the government to which they were entitled (wasting a huge amount of time and effort to do so) then the government would just raise the level of taxation to make up for this. The government has to raise a certain amount of tax. Period. There is no 7.6 billion pounds just waiting to be handed over to the citizens of Britain. (The exact amounts everybody paid would of course be slightly different but that is rather beside the point.)
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