Middle earners deserves a tax cut, TORIES calls - frustrated by George Osborne's failure #CarryGobySeanKellz #FutureGroupNG via @myentertain9jar

CALLS for the Government to stop demanding ever more cash from middle earners were renewed yesterday.

Chancellor George Osborne posing for press before presenting his Budget to Parliament[GETTY]

Senior Tories are frustrated by George Osborne’s failure to do more to raise the point at which earnings are taxed at the higher rate of 40p in the pound.

New data from HM Revenue & Customs showed 16 per cent of Britain’s taxpayers will pay more than two-thirds of all income tax this year.

Tory MP Nick de Bois said: “This government has been very fair to lower income earners by taking over two million people out of income tax altogether but it’s important we don’t ­forget the middle income earners as well.

“At the point you start to pay higher rate tax your take-home pay is only £4,000 more than the household benefits cap.

“That’s hardly the point we should be taxing people as ‘higher earners’.

“I hope a Conservative government will soon be able to help these hard-working people.”

Middle earners like senior nurses and teachers will pay 40 per cent tax on income over £41,866, equivalent to about £30,000 a year take-home pay. The coalition cap on benefits per household of £26,000 a year is equivalent to pre-tax earnings of £35,000.

We should be taxing people as ‘higher earners’.

Nick de Bois, Tory MP

Former Chancellor Lord Lawson told Total Politics magazine: “It may have to wait until there’s a Conservative government... but I do think that it is likely that [one] would recognise that the 40p threshold comes in at too low a level of income.”

Stephanie Lis, of the Institute for Economic Affairs, said: “The Government should introduce legislation requiring all income tax thresholds to be increased annually by the higher of wage growth or inflation.”

HM Revenue & Customs figures showed that an estimated 4.6 million 40p rate taxpayers and the 343,000 people who pay the top 45p rate on earnings in excess of £150,000 a year are expected to contribute about 67 per cent of the tax take this year – £116billion of the £172billion total, .

In 2011-12, they contributed 58 per cent.

The 40p rate payers are set to contribute £66.3billion, while £56billion of the bill will be shared between the 24 million people who pay the basic 20 per cent.