Almost everything in this country is now a taxable event, complete with an ever growing mountain of paperwork and administration. The tax take is on track for its highest level since the Second World War. The OBR forecasts it rising every year out to 2030, into what one of its own committee members has called "uncharted territory." Public spending sits at around 45% of GDP. Almost half the economy is now state, in one form or another. And still, the prevailing message from government is that things are under-taxed. Buying a house: stamp duty. Inheriting one: inheritance tax. Building and subsequently selling a business: capital gains, raised in the October budget. Inheriting a farm or a family firm: APR and BPR capped at £1m from April 2026. Hiring: higher employer NICs on a lower threshold since April 2025. Dividends. Pensions. ISAs above the cap. Trust transfers. All taxed. Mostly taxed more. Then there are the duties. Alcohol duty up with RPI in February 2026, on top of the 3.65% rise in February 2025. Tobacco. Air Passenger Duty. Insurance Premium Tax. Soft drinks levy. Vape duty incoming. Then there is the regulation. The Home Builders Federation puts the cumulative tax and policy changes on housebuilding since 2020 at £76,000 per new home. Building regs. Biodiversity Net Gain. Future Homes Standard. Section 106. Building Safety Levy. Nutrient neutrality. Landfill tax. Affordable housing contributions. Completions in 2024/25: 208,000. Down 16% from the 2020 peak. The same compounding load now sits on every venue with a door and a licence. One pub closes a day. One nightclub closes every two days. A third of UK nightclubs have disappeared since 2020. A quarter of British towns no longer have a single one. 40% of operators expect to close within six months. Average pub rateable value is up 30% in the 2026 revaluation. Business rates for the average pub up 76% over three years. Employer NICs up. Living wage up again from April. The dance floor itself is now effectively taxed out of existence. The result is exactly what you would expect… Houses don't get built. Farms don't change hands. Businesses don't expand. Founders defer or relocate. Hiring stalls. Capital sits. The high street closes, one shuttered venue at a time. And the tax and regulation conversation is not slowing. It is ramping up. In the space of a single week, two senior Labour figures have briefed the next round. Wes Streeting wants capital gains tax aligned with income tax, taking top rates from 24% to 45%, estimated at £12bn a year. Andy Burnham wants a land value tax he claims could raise £35bn, on the basis that British land is "under-taxed." The Treasury is already collecting more, in more places, than at any peacetime point in modern history. The political class is now openly competing on what to tax next. Every new proposal freezes a fresh part of the economy in anticipation. This is more than friction. It's the deliberate, line-by-line pricing of inaction over action. Every shuttered venue, every unbuilt home, every founder on a flight out is a tax receipt the Treasury will never collect. Yet the answer seems to be… more tax and more regulation. What was Einstein’s definition of insanity again?