We've paid the taxman at last!

EMPLOYEES will finally stop working for Gordon Brown today and start earning for themselves. Today is Tax Freedom Day - the point in the year when the average worker has earned enough to pay off their annual tax bill.

Thanks to a succession of tax hikes, they have had to work three days longer this year for the Chancellor.

And they have actually worked six days longer than they did in 2003. There is little hope of it getting better. By 2009, the average Briton should be working until 7 June to pay off the tax man.

Mr Brown's controversial increase in National Insurance two years ago is one of the main reasons for the fact that tax freedom arrives later each year. Inflation-busting increases in council tax have also contributed.

Britain's performance contrasts sharply with many of our main competitors. In the US, tax freedom day is 11 April, while in Japan the date is 5 May.

It is only in high-tax Europe that the situation is worse than in Britain. The average German has to work until 6 June, while in France they start earning for themselves on 5 July.

Tax Freedom Day is calculated each year by the free-market Adam Smith Institute, which compares Britain's national income with the total the Chancellor raises each year in tax. When the exercise started in 1963, Tax Freedom Day fell on 24 April. Since then, apart from a few exceptions, it has arrived steadily later in the year.

Calculations by the institute's chief economist Gabriel Stein suggest the problem will worsen over the next four years. Using the Government's figures, he has calculated that Tax Freedom Day will have slipped back to 7 June within four years.

Institute director Dr Eamonn Butler said Mr Brown was 'getting the maximum amount of feathers with the minimum of squawking because the goose does not know it is being plucked'.

Last night a Treasury spokesman said: 'We do not recognise the concept of Tax Freedom Day. The average family is £1,300 a year better off in real terms since 1997.'