Many taxpayers will be shocked at the thousands of pounds they contribute towards state handouts

Figures reveal just how much hard-working Britons on low and middle incomes have to pay – and tax campaigners say we should get these figures every year. Many taxpayers will be shocked at the thousands of pounds they contribute towards state handouts and town hall pensions. Families may also be dismayed to learn what they stump up for the European Union and overseas aid. Here the detailed Treasury figures ­in the form of a tax statement break down exactly where your money goes on a range of areas including health, education, police, transport and the environment. Treasury figures ­in the form of a tax statement break down exactly where your money goes

Families may also be dismayed to learn what they stump up for the European Union and overseas aid.

A group of Tory MPs want workers to get a statement like this – similar to one from your bank – every year to make government more accountable. They are calling for HM Revenue and Customs to provide ­personalised statements showing exactly what each annual tax bill pays for. Our example for 2010/11 shows that someone earning the ­average wage of £26,000 pays £6,134 in income tax and national insurance. One third – £2,135 – of that sum goes on handouts and pensions. Housing benefit costs £226, while £412 goes on income support, tax credits and child allowance. Sickness and disability benefits accounts for £309 a year and £48 of your money goes towards jobseeker’s allowance.

The second largest chunk of an average earner’s tax bill goes to the NHS – £1,109 of everything a typical wage-earner took home in the last tax year. Education sets average earners back £835 in a year, of which £599 goes on keeping our mainstream schools open. Compared to what is spent on the teaching sector, just £335 goes on defence. As for the police, they cost each of us £159 while the fire brigade amounts to £29. At just £1 less, the European Union collects £28 off you, while foreign aid costs another £60, although this figure is rising. But these and other taxes, such as those for transport (£211 for the average earner), housing (£126) and waste and environment (£107) are not the full story.

Each and every one of us also pays an avalanche of indirect taxes, which came to a typical £2,737 in 2009-10. There is air passenger duty when you fly, stamp duty to get a property and vehicle excise duty in order to run your car legally. And given that we all have to go to the shops, of course there is VAT too. Less well known but equally unwelcome is the wine of fresh grape duties. Tory MP Ben Gummer will propose annual tax-spend statements to the Commons in a 10 Minute Rule Bill today. He is being supported by ­Treasury Committee chairman Andrew Tyrie and Graham Brady, chairman of the powerful 1922 Committee of Tory MPs. A spokesman for Prime ­Minister David Cameron said: “We ­welcome the idea. Clearly more transparency in the tax system is a good thing. People understanding better where their money that they pay into the tax system goes is a good thing.

“We will have to consider the specific proposal. No doubt there would be lots of practicalities that would have to be looked at. But the principle is a good one.” Mr Gummer believes that for the first time people could get “a real feel for the relative distribution of their taxes”. “These single sheets of paper have the potential to transform and enliven our democracy,” he said. COMMENTARY BEN GUMMER, Conservative MP for Ipswich

EVERY month we are made to surrender a load of our hard-earned cash to the government – and yet we are not told where it all goes. We would never hand so much money over to anyone else without knowing what for. When we spend money in the supermarket, on gas or on a phone bill, we get a receipt. Why should the government be different? For too long the public has been the victim of a collective fraud by politicians. Instead of being open with people, governments have taken people’s money and obscured what they spent it on. This must change. We are forced to pay tax. The government should be forced to tell us how it spends it. The government needs to be honest with voters about what it does with public money.