Yes we all had to pay Olympic tax as part of our council tax bill but also a lot of it is hidden. For example everybody has to paying 20% in Value Added Tax for all goods (similar to sales tax), certainly a hike prior to 2002 of 17.5% and for a while 15%. There's a premium of £12 car congestion charge if you drive in London per day. Petrol is ridiculous despite oil is cheaper than its ever been. We are currently paying £1.34p per liter of unleaded petrol or £1.39 for Diesel. The standard petrol works out approx $2 US per liter or $7.56 per gallon, more than double of those from the US. There are car tax on top of it depends on which car you have, and just higher income tax in general compare to Asia and the US (But then we have the NHS). It is a bad economic times in UK, so it all had to come from somewhere.
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(fyi, the consumption tax in Japan is 5% right now. The government is trying to raise it up to 8% in April 2014 then 10% in October 2015, but is having a pretty hard time to get an approval from the House of Councilors (=the Upper House).) 
