Not just Rachel Reeves! Now Angela Rayner piles in with her own stealth tax raid too

Despite Labour's pledge not to hike taxes on "working people," the Chancellor has hit them hard by stealth. She's already raised £40billion in taxes on the sly, and may return for up to £30billion in her next Budget too.

Freezing income tax thresholds is dragging millions into higher bands, including low-paid workers and poorer pensioners. Within two years, even the state pension will be taxed for the first time. Her £25billion national insurance raid on employers has wiped out jobs, driven up prices and held back wages.

Reeves is also hitting family farms, businesses and pensions with inheritance tax, hiking capital gains tax, and driving wealthy non-doms out of Britain altogether.

Stamp duty reliefs have been allowed to expire. Business rates remain unreformed, hammering high streets and killing off pubs and small shops. And this is only the beginning.

Pensions, ISAs, property and capital gains are in the firing line this autumn. Reeves may even introduce a wealth tax.

Yet incredibly, the Chancellor is far from being Labour's biggest tax fanatic.

Deputy PM Angela Rayner is giving it a go, having already handed Reeves a shopping list of taxes that would clobber pensioners and wealthy Brits.

Now she's acting off her own bat. With her upcoming Employment Rights Bill, Rayner is introducing a stealth tax of her own.

The bill promises new worker protections from day one, a ban on zero-hours contracts, and enhanced powers for unions. But these changes come at a cost, up to £5billion a year, and workers will ultimately foot the bill.

That's the verdict of Professor Len Shackleton at the University of Buckingham, whose report for the Institute of Economic Affairs calls it a "stealth payroll tax".

Far from employers bearing the brunt, higher costs will mean smaller pay rises and fewer job opportunities.

"Politicians love to announce new employment 'rights' because they think employers pay the bill," Shackleton warns. "But that's an illusion." The real price is paid in the form of lower wage growth and stunted economic expansion.

This is stealth taxation in action, Rayner's own twist on Reeves's favourite tactic. Disguise the cost, pass it on and pretend you're doing voters a favour.

And it still won't be enough for fired-up Labour MPs, drunk on the success of their disability spending cuts revolt.

Now hard-left MPs like Nadia Whittome are circling too. The Nottingham backbencher has published a list of her own radical tax demands, pressuring Reeves to unleash an eye-watering £120billion in new levies.

Whittome wants to hike capital gains tax, slap national insurance on investment income, tax private wealth and much more.

These proposals would hammer businesses, investors and professionals, driving out enterprise and crushing growth. The rich won't be the only ones to pay. The middle classes will be clobbered too.

The left doesn't care. And after Reeves's U-turn on welfare last week, they smell blood. The Chancellor's authority is shot, and Labour's internal tax revolt is just getting started.

We knew Reeves would come for our money - and she has. But now Rayner is joining the charge, followed by dozens of backbenchers.

By the time they're finished, taxpayers will have nothing left to give.