British families ‘are paying 20% more tax’

FAMILIES with a stay-at-home parent pay taxes a fifth higher than the average tax bill in the western world, a study showed yesterday.

Figures collected by the club of developed nations, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, showed a single-earner family in Britain on pay of £36,571 a year were taxed 20 per cent more than the average for a OECD country.

The analysis for the charity CARE blamed the British tax system for failing to take account of marriage or for people’s responsibility for raising children.

A one-earner married couple with two children paid 70 per cent more than a similar family in France and twice as much as a similar family in the United States, according to the study.

CARE chief Nola Leach said: ‘The Government has said it wants to support families who are just about managing, but this group is still being discriminated against by an unfair tax system.’