Traditional families penalized by UK tax system

Traditional families with a working father and a stay-at-home mother are penalized more by the British tax system than by the tax systems of most other developed nations according to a report publish by care—a UK-based Christian charity.

“The UK tax system is unusual,” the report states. “Income tax takes virtually no account of either marriage or a taxpayer’s family responsibilities.”

In 2009, a family with one earner earning the average wage had to pay one third more tax than in the average oecd (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) country. In the average oecd country, a married person who is the single wage earner for his family pays roughly half the tax that a single person would pay. But in the UK, he must pay nearly three quarters as much tax—the highest amount of any nation in the oecd.

“The UK is almost alone in having no tax provision for families except for some transitional arrangements for a small number of older married couples,” the report says.

The only countries that penalize single-earning couples more than the UK are Finland, Greece, Korea, Mexico, Norway and Turkey, while Denmark penalizes them by about the same amount.

The British government may talk about supporting marriage and family, but the tax system shows it won’t take any action to back up the words.