UK families with a stay-at-home parent and two children have to pay more tax on average than the international norm, according to a global think-tank.
It comes as Ann Widdecombe warns against a society where childcare is seen as a “problem instead of a cherished and jealously-guarded part of motherhood”.
The think-tank’s report found the average family with one earner and two children pays 27.9 per cent of their wages in tax – nearly 2 percentage points more than the international standard.
Alienating
It was also revealed, in the findings from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), that such families pay more in tax now than before the coalition Government came to power.
The study compared taxes from the present with figures from 2009 and 2000 and looked at four typical household groups, including a family on the average wage with one earner and two children.
It found that traditional UK families pay an average of 1.7 percentage points more tax than the international norm – which equates to £170 more tax per year for every £10,000 earned.
Earlier this month David Cameron was accused of “alienating” stay-at-home mums with a new Government childcare programme.
Materialistic
Following the outcry former Conservative minister Anne Widdecombe commented: “Yes, some women do have to work not in order to fund aspiration but just to ensure the basic survival of the family and, yes, some need tangible help in order to do so.
“But to create a society where the norm is for childcare to be a problem instead of a cherished and jealously-guarded part of motherhood is to create a selfish, materialistic, money-orientated world in which salary is all and selflessness nothing.
“I do not want to stop any mother, who so chooses from working but I do not expect my taxes to pay for her to do so, let alone see those same taxes used against the full-time mother.
Mothers
“The tax system should be at the very least neutral between full-time mothers and working ones.”
The new Government scheme would see working parents get up to £1,200 a year to help with childcare but will only apply where both parents are working or a single parent is in employment.