Tax Freedom Day

There are lots of Australians around in the Lake District at the moment, which is great for the hotel trade. And the Damson Dene is getting more than its fair share of Aussie visitors as The Hotel was shown there recently and they are flocking to meet Wayne and his crew. A trip to England from Australia has suddenly become affordable because their dollar is very strong against the pound. Another reason is that their government isn’t as rapacious as ours.

I was reminded of this by the fact that today is Tax Freedom Day- the day when the average British citizen stops working for the government and starts working for himself. The Adam Smith Institute has worked out that for 149 days of the year- in other words every day until today- every penny earned by the average British person has been taken by the government in tax. In Australia, Tax Freedom Day starts on April 4th. That’s a difference of 54 days, easily enough to pay for a bloody good holiday in the UK. But there’s a crumb of comfort for us in the knowledge that the French don’t reach Tax Freedom Day until July. This may help to explain why the only French cars we see in these parts belong to the English returning from their gites.