When the International Monetary Fund — not exactly a right-wing think tank — warns that Britain has hit "peak taxation", the Chancellor should listen. Rachel Reeves is not listening. This week officials in Washington told her, in so many words, that pushing taxes higher will now do more harm than good. The tax burden is forecast to rise another 4.5 percentage points of GDP between now and 2031, taking Britain above 40% — the highest level since the Second World War.

Let that sink in. A Labour government, 20 months in, has already pushed the British tax burden to levels not seen in 80 years. And according to the IMF, there is nowhere left to go except down.

The £75 Billion Tax Raid

The scale of Reeves's tax agenda is extraordinary. The 2025 Budget alone added a net £26 billion in new taxes. Layer on National Insurance rises, dividend tax increases, inheritance tax changes, frozen thresholds, stealth drag from fiscal creep, and council tax increases waved through at local level — and the cumulative hit on households and businesses runs to around £75 billion a year. This is, on any historical measure, a tax raid of a scale Britain hasn't seen in decades.

And what has all this money delivered? Growth of 1.1%. Productivity still stagnant. Public services still broken. Waiting lists still at 7.2 million. A welfare bill still rising. An asylum bill out of control. In other words, voters are being asked to hand over more and more of their income — for less and less in return.

Why the IMF Is Right

The IMF's warning is not ideological. It's arithmetical. Above a certain point, tax rises stop raising revenue and start destroying it. Businesses don't invest. Entrepreneurs don't build. Workers reduce their hours or leave the country. Wealthy investors shift capital abroad. The tax base shrinks, even as the rate rises. This is called the Laffer curve, and it is not controversial except when Labour ministers find it inconvenient.

The OECD made the same point earlier this month, urging Reeves to overhaul Britain's "complex and distorting" tax system. Income tax discourages work. VAT is full of regressive, inefficient reliefs. Property tax uses 1991 valuations — literally 35 years out of date. Nobody with a clean sheet of paper would design the system we have. But instead of reforming it, Reeves is simply loading more on top.

The Real Cost of High Taxes

The headline tax burden tells one story. The hidden cost tells another. When a country becomes a high-tax jurisdiction, it becomes a low-investment jurisdiction. Foreign direct investment into the UK has slumped. IPO listings on the London Stock Exchange have collapsed to their lowest in 15 years. Britain's best young talent increasingly looks to Dubai, Singapore, and New York for their careers. And we wonder why growth is stuck at one per cent.

Closer to home, working families are seeing the tax burden in every payslip. National Insurance, income tax, fuel duty, VAT, stamp duty, council tax — it never stops. Yet, as I hear constantly in Preston East, the services they pay for get worse every year. People are not wrong to feel they are being taken for granted. They are being taken for granted.

What Reform UK Would Do

Reform UK's answer is straightforward: lower, simpler, flatter. Raise the income tax threshold to £20,000 so low-paid workers keep more of what they earn. Cut waste ruthlessly — there is at least £90 billion a year of it in the public sector, by the Taxpayers' Alliance's latest audit. Scrap the net zero obsession that is adding tens of billions in hidden costs to energy, transport, and industry. End the multi-billion-pound asylum hotel scandal. Redirect the savings to real tax cuts for the people who work, save, and build.

It isn't complicated. It is just politically inconvenient for a party whose base depends on an ever-larger state.

Peak Taxation Is Peak Labour

When international institutions that usually lean to the left start warning a Labour government that it has taxed too much — something has gone very seriously wrong. The tax burden is the single biggest reason Britain is not growing, not investing, and not feeling better off. Until we change course, nothing else will change.

Reform UK is the only party offering that change.