Keir Starmer’s pick for the Treasury has announced huge changes that critics say have hindered growth.

 

Rachel Reeves has overseen huge tax hikes (Image: Getty)

Rachel Reeves has broken an unwanted record for a UK Chancellor, and no one is surprised. Brits face paying a massive amount of tax in 2026, which is only set to increase thanks to Ms Reeves’s policies. Now, new figures have suggested that she has dropped a record £75billion tax bomb, hitting Brits harder than any of her predecessors at the Treasury since figures began.

In the 1980s, the UK’s tax burden decreased dramatically. Most notably, Nigel Lawson oversaw a shrinking of the state’s tentacles that reached into individual’s pay packets and businesses’ operations. He slashed the top rate of income tax from 60% to 40%, and the basic rate from 27% to 25% in his 1988 Budget.

Margaret Thatcher’s finance chief also reduced corporation tax and inheritance tax rates, and simplified bands. In addition, personal allowances were increased. All of this was designed to spark growth and enterprise.

Nigel Lawson cut taxes as Margaret Thatcher’s Chancellor (Image: Getty)

He and the Iron Lady later of course fell out over the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) and the appointment of Alan Walters as the then-Prime Minister’s financial advisor.

That may seem like a different political universe when one observes today’s political weather.

Rishi Sunak oversaw a large increase in the fiscal burden as Chancellor and Prime Minister.

In September 2023, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) reported that, by the time of the next election in 2024, on contemporary forecasts, taxes would amount to around 37% of national income, a level not sustained in the post-war period.

Ms Reeves unveiled her Budget in November, which set massive fiscal time bombs under the feet of hard-working Brits.

The headline was the freezing of income tax thresholds – which is expected to raise an additional £55.5billion per year by the 2030-31.

Altogether, a new database has shown that Ms Reeves has been “scored” as adding a record-breaking £75.1billion a year to the burden, The Mail reports.

The Treasury’s incumbent was responsible for two of the 10 biggest tax-raising Budgets on record, the data suggests.

In November, Ms Reeves insisted taxes have been kept at “an absolute minimum on ordinary working people.”

Her plans also included a new pay-per-mile tax for electric vehicles, increased taxes on online betting and a so-called “mansion tax” on homes worth more than £2million.

Moreover, salary sacrifice pensions will be taxed, and the cash ISA limit is to be reduced to £12,000 from April 2027.