Saturday, 16 April 2011

How many pages are in the UK tax code?

Courtesy of this post at The Last Ditch, I have learnt the answer: 11,520 pages (or about half as long as this 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary), and it doubled under New Labour.

Burn it I say, and make Gordon Brown eat the ashes.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why cook the books? Make him eat them raw.

The Wasp said...

It would seem that the UK tax system is an industry in itself with so much complication when compared to others who seem to manage perfectly well :

The Baltic countries are a great example of this– the entire Estonian tax code is about 70 pages, roughly 1/1000th the size of the US tax code (which is still prone to so much interpretation).
It takes about 15 minutes to fill out an Estonian return, and you can do it online.


quote taken from here http://www.zerohedge.com/article/irs-meet-philip-k-dick-tax-collectors-launch-pre-crime-division

Trooper Thompson said...

That's exactly what we need. 70 pages can cover it all. The more there is, the worse it gets - except for the parasites.

Thanks for the information.

Anon,

my way is better theatre.

gbsteuerzahler said...

70 pages only? Well, what do you expect from a country with libertarian government (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_Reform_Party).
Ah, the state debt is only 7% in Estonia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Estonia).

Trooper Thompson said...

gbsteuerzahler,

maybe the UK can outsource its government?