After simply 17 months in No11… Rachel Reeves hikes the tax burden on Brits to the best EVER degree with 52 completely different levy rises (the equal of 1 each 10 days)

Rachel Reeves has pushed the tax burden on Britons to its highest ever level after just under 17 months in 11 Downing Street.

After the Chancellor unveiled a slew of fresh levy rises in her Budget on Wednesday, the tax-to-GDP ratio was forecast to reach an eye-watering 38.3 per cent in 2030/31.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) watchdog said this was ‘largely due’ to Ms Reeves’ actions at Wednesday’s Budget, as well as changes over the past few years.

The 38.3 per cent tax-to-GDP ratio is the highest level in more than 300 years of official records.

Ms Reeves used her latest Budget, the second she has delivered since becoming Britain’s first female Chancellor, to announce an additional 24 new taxes or rises.

She is set to raise an extra £30billion a year by 2030-31 – including £12.7billion from extending the long-running freeze on tax thresholds for another three years.

It came after the Chancellor raised £41.5billion at her first Budget in October 2024.

Ms Reeves now looks on track to increase taxes, in just two fiscal packages, by more than ex-Labour chancellor Gordon Brown managed during a decade in No11.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank said – if a general election were held tomorrow – the overall tax rises announced by Ms Reeves would exceed those announced in any other parliament since at least 1970.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance campaign group calculated Ms Reeves had overseen a total of 52 new taxes or rises during the 509 days she had been in office.

This is the equivalent of a tax rise every 10 days since Labour came to power in July 2024.

Rachel Reeves has pushed the tax burden on Britons to its highest ever level after just under 17 months in 11 Downing Street

The tax rises announced by Ms Reeves’ Budget on Wednesday were needed to help fill a hole in the public finances.

The Chancellor also funded a welfare spending splurge that experts said will cost taxpayers an extra £16billion.

One of the biggest revenue-raisers of Ms Reeves’ latest Budget was her decision to extend the ‘stealth raid’ on Britons.

The Chancellor is now set to keep the long-running freeze on personal tax thresholds in place for another three years beyond 2028.

It means the income tax personal allowance will remain at £12,750 until 2030-31, while the higher rate and additional rate thresholds will remain at £50,270 and £125,140, respectively, over the same period.

The OBR, which took the blame for a humiliating leak of Ms Reeves’ Budget measures before she announced them, said the move would raise around £8billion a year.

The long-running freeze to tax thresholds will mean an extra 5.2 million Britons are paying income tax between 2022-23 and 2030-31.

Over the same period, 4.8million more taxpayers will have moved to the higher 40p rate, and 600,000 more to the additional 45p rate.

The OBR watchdog found the three-year extension means there would be an extra 780,000 more basic rate income tax payers by 2029/30.

There will also be 920,000 more higher rate and 4,000 more additional rate income tax payers in 2029/30 due to the Chancellor’s latest action, it added.

The IFS think tank said – if an election were held tomorrow – the overall tax rises announced by Ms Reeves would exceed those announced in any other parliament since at least 1970

IFS director Helen Miller said Ms Reeves’ decision to extend the freeze on tax thresholds ‘clearly represents a tax rise on working people’.

‘Because it includes a freeze in National Insurance thresholds, it also breaches the Government’s manifesto tax promise not to increase National Insurance,’ she added.

‘One year on from her first Budget, Rachel Reeves is choosing to spend more and borrow more than she previously said she would.

‘To stress: borrowing will be higher in each of the next three years. Only after that point, from 2029–30, will borrowing be lower than previously planned, due to a set of back-loaded tax rises and promises of spending restraint in the next Spending Review period.

‘The additional spending and borrowing in the short-term is readily believable. The future restraint, just before the next election?

‘One could be forgiven for treating that with a healthy dose of scepticism.’

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘The Chancellor’s Budget benefits bonanza will be paid for by hard working taxpayers through their incomes, pensions, property, savings and beyond.

‘The pettiness of this Government and its unquenchable thirst for cash even extends to milkshakes.

‘And the catastrophic content of this Budget is only matched by the utter shambles that has been the process, capped off by the extraordinary leak from the OBR.

‘Rachel Reeves needs to urgently change course, by drastically reducing the benefits bill, bringing in targeted, growth-generating tax cuts and deregulating the economy. 

‘We are now dangerously close to the cliff edge.’