This report, which is based on recently published OECD data, examines how UK households were taxed in 2023 (UK tax year 2023-24). It compares the UK with the OECD as a whole and with three other individual members (France, Germany and the US). It updates information provided in a similar report for 2022.

The main problem is that income tax liabilities are unrelated to household incomes with the result families in poverty may be paying tax as well as receiving universal credit. The overlap of the tax and benefit systems traps families in poverty and results in many families having a high marginal tax rate – a higher rate than applies to taxpayers earning over £125,000.

This report considers how UK households are taxed compared with their counterparts in other developed countries.

Breakthrough! Tax and the Family make a proposal for resolving the one earner/two earner unfairness in the High Income Child Benefit Charge which meets previous objections.

The tax burden is increasing for everyone but people with children are the worst affected. They have the lowest incomes yet bear a disproportionately high share of the income tax burden and the Treasury take back almost 70% or more of any extra money they earn.

Tax is a key political issue. To get the economy growing do taxes need to be cut? Or do they need to be increased to deal with the hole in the government’s finances?

Tax and the Family together with the charity CARE published on 30th March their annual report on the taxation of families in the UK and other OECD countries. The report calls for fairer taxation - not necessarily lower taxation. The report is timely.

Although the income tax system in Scotland differs from that in the rest of the UK, many of the problems are the same.

This report addresses issues relating to the taxation of UK families:

• how heavily they are taxed compared with their counterparts in other developed countries

• how they are taxed compared with households without children

• changes to the UK tax and benefits system that would ensure fairer outcomes.

An earlier paper by Tax and the Family analysed which types of household bore the heaviest income tax burden. This paper extends the analysis to cover families with three or four children.