At last - it's tax freedom day

SAY hello to your freedom when you wake up today. Every single day this year you have been working for Gordon Brown. From today your salary is your own. Today is Tax Freedom Day.

This extraordinary calculation takes the amount of tax you pay on average as a proportion of your income and works out what percentage of the year that comes to. Astonishingly it is a full five months.

The mathematically-inclined will have spotted that this is about 40% of the year. Correct. Gordon Brown takes 40% of our money.

In fact, the proportion he takes has been increasing and will rise yet more to 45% of the economy.

There was a fairly recent period - think of it as a golden age - when the government's share fell back towards 35%. From 1982 to 1993 Tax Freedom Day fell earlier every year or stayed the same. This was, of course, before Gordon Brown.

This year we have had to work three extra days to pay off the Chancellor. People wonder how this can be, since Labour pledged not to raise the rates of income tax.

Yes, but it broke that pledge sneakily by pushing up National Insurance and removing the upper limit. This turned NI into an income tax under a different name.

Then the Chancellor let the thresholds suck more people into the higher tax brackets. They have not been increased in line with our extra earnings.

This way, he has collected more income tax without raising the rates - which is why professionals such as top teachers and police officers are in the 40% bracket intended for the super-rich.

Income tax is by no means the whole story. Gordon Brown has earned the unflattering title of The Stealth Chancellor, which is how he will be remembered. He introduces taxes slyly, so the Treasury collects the money without us realising where it is going. His annual £5bn raid on pension funds is a classic example, but there are 65 other stealth taxes, ranging from stamp duty to the tax on airline tickets.

What does it buy? The answer is precious little. Government spending is up by a third since 1997, from £333bn to £450bn. A huge bung went on the public services, especially health and education. The tiny improvement in each is a marginal gain for all that cash.

The NHS budget for England is up from £33bn in 1996/97 to £76bn today, but it has been largely swallowed up in public- sector inflation instead of extra services. The NHS has employed more new administrators than doctors and nurses. The public sector is bloated with diversity and equality administrators, with 'real nappy' officers and co- ordinators to make sure we eat enough fruit and vegetables every day.

The bad news for Britain is that this is costing us more than just the extra tax we all pay. The blunt truth is that higher taxes mean lower growth. It is the lower-tax countries which generate the wealth and the jobs which will let us pay our way tomorrow.

Britain used to be one of them, attracting investors and business talent. We occupied an enviable position in the economic league table. Not any more. As Tax Freedom Day has fallen later over the Brown years, our standing has fallen in all of the tables. We are not quite at the low growth plus the 10% unemployment levels of France and Germany - but we are heading that way.

There is a distant rumble from the East. An increasing number of European countries are moving over to a flat tax set at very low rates. Their economies are growing and investment is pouring in. This is growth and investment which could have come our way, but for the ever-increasing tax burden.

By all means celebrate Tax Freedom Day today. But remember those three extra days of our cash going to the Treasury - and shed a silent tear for the damage this is doing to our growth and enterprise.