What was claimed
A list of taxes UK residents have to pay today didn’t exist 60 years ago.
Our verdict
This list is inaccurate. Several of the taxes mentioned existed in some form 60 years ago.
Viral post includes several false claims about UK taxes
What was claimed
The UK had no national debt 60 years ago.
Our verdict
False. The UK’s national debt was 77.7% of its GDP 60 years ago.
Identical posts shared widely on social media make a number of inaccurate claims about the UK’s public finances.
The posts list several taxes, and claim that “Not one of these taxes existed 60 years ago”.
This isn’t correct. Sixty years ago, in 1966, several of the taxes listed were collected in the UK, including income tax.
A number of these taxes have been levied in some form for much longer, but not necessarily under the name listed—for example, forms of what we now refer to as inheritance tax have existed under various names for centuries.
Some of the taxes are also named incorrectly—for example G.S.T (Goods and Service Tax) is called Value Added Tax (VAT) in the UK—or fall under others already listed (for example, “tax on dining out” would fall under VAT).
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The posts also claim that 60 years ago “We had absolutely no national debt.” This isn’t true either. Although the UK’s national debt was lower as a percentage of GDP in 1966 than current levels (93.8% in 2025/26), it still stood at 77.7% of GDP.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because several of these taxes existed in some form 60 years ago, and UK debt was 77.7% of its GDP.