Have you ever wondered where your income taxes go? Well, the good news is that if you have a personal tax account (it's easy enough to obtain one, see here) you can. However, to save you good people the trouble, I went and looked at mine. This is on a percentage basis how my taxes got spent (everyones should be the same):
| Description | 2017-18 | 2016-17 | 2015-16 | 2014-15 | Avg. |
| Welfare | 23.8% | 24.3% | 25.0% | 25.3% | 24.6% |
| Health | 19.9% | 20.3% | 19.9% | 19.9% | 20.0% |
| State Pensions | 12.8% | 12.9% | 12.8% | 12.8% | 12.8% |
| Education | 12.0% | 12.3% | 12.0% | 12.5% | 12.2% |
| National Debt Interest | 6.1% | 5.5% | 5.3% | 5.0% | 5.5% |
| Defence | 5.3% | 5.2% | 5.2% | 5.4% | 5.3% |
| Public Order and Safety | 4.3% | 4.2% | 4.3% | 4.4% | 4.3% |
| Transport | 4.3% | 4.2% | 4.0% | 3.0% | 3.9% |
| Business and Industry | 2.9% | 2.5% | 2.4% | 2.7% | 2.6% |
| Government Administration | 2.1% | 2.1% | 2.0% | 2.0% | 2.1% |
| Culture | 1.6% | 1.6% | 1.6% | 1.8% | 1.7% |
| Environment | 1.6% | 1.6% | 1.7% | 1.7% | 1.7% |
| Housing and Utilities | 1.6% | 1.5% | 1.4% | 1.6% | 1.5% |
| Overseas Aid | 1.2% | 1.1% | 1.2% | 1.3% | 1.2% |
| UK Contribution to the EU | 0.7% | 0.7% | 1.1% | 0.6% | 0.8% |
I have shown the percentages for the last four years, and it throws out some interesting results. Largely the biggest shocker is that the percentages stay pretty stable over the four years, although there are a couple of culprits that seem to deviate from the average, principally spending on welfare and national debt interest.
HMRC helpfully also published a paper in November 2018 detailing how much tax they've collected (it can be found here), it really is a great cure for insomnia, I recommend it. However, if you just want to know how much tax the government collects check out page 4. Interestingly the "tax take" has been increasing year on year for some time. To get another idea of just how many different types of tax there are, you could do worse than looking at the Taxpayers Alliance.
I don't intend to draw any political conclusions, that's not my place (I'm a tax advisor after all, not a politician), but I will leave you all with one Brexit related fact though. The median annual income in the UK, according to the most recent Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, is £28,677 for full-time employees. This means the average tax for an employee is £5,640. So, on average the EU gets £45.12 a year from your taxes...
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