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Tim Worstall in 'Polly on gambling '...for the government to be screwing 14% of total turnover out of an industry is really quite impressive: outside sectors like domestically pumped oil (with the royalties upon it) I’m not sure that there is any other sector so heavily taxed. Be very interested to know if there is of course.

Me in the comments: 'any sector that produces VAT-able supplies hands over just under 15% of its turnover as VAT. Sure, the nominal VAT bill is reduced by the input VAT they have paid to their own suppliers, but the total bill, VAT paid to HMRC plus input VAT paid to suppliers is 14.8936% of turnover. Next question.'