DadTalk

Britain 'worst place for tax burden on single-earner families’

Middle class families in which one parent stays at home to look after the children pay more than a third extra in tax in Britain than those in other Western countries, a report has found.

Researchers for CARE, a Christian social policy charity, said the tax system was “unfriendly to families” and was going to get worse. They said that “those in the middle who are not rich are shouldering a heavy burden”, despite David Cameron’s promise to make Britain the most family-friendly country in Europe.

The research will increase the pressure on George Osborne, the Chancellor, to introduce tax breaks for families in this month’s Budget. The charity recommends introducing transferable allowances for married couples, which were outlined in the Coalition agreement. The report, “The Taxation of Families 2009-10”, is a detailed assessment of the impact of the tax system on families compared with 33 other countries.

About 2.4 million children in Britain live in households where one parent is in full-time work and one is not working.

During the past few years, the report found, the tax burden had shifted markedly from single people without dependants to families. While the tax burden on most families and individuals was “not out of line with that in other countries”, it found that “this is not the case with one-earner married couples with children”.

British single-earner families with two children on £33,745 a year were paying 39 per cent more in tax than comparable families from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

Read more at The Telegraph website