It is interesting that you refer to the government giving the rich a tax break> By this i take it you are referring to them scrapping the 50% tax rate that Labour introduced just a few months before an election they expected to lose!
You are quite right in saying that the banking crisis had a major impact on the economies around the world. However over their years in government the Labour party were spending more evry year than they received in tax revenues but it never seemed to occur to them that a 50% tax rate for higher earners would help reduce the deficit - WHY.
The latest idea from labour is to bring back to 10% tax band. Who benefits from this tax reduction? Every single taxpayer, including the very rich! Thay could have helped the lower paid by increasing personal allowances but this does not have the same impact on voters as lowering the tax rates.
With personal allowances you lose �1 of allowance for every �2 of income over �100,000. So, if Labour wanted to have the first �10k of income (over the �8,105 current allowance) at 10% instead of 20% (giving all taxpayers earing �18,105 or more �1k in their pockets)they could have raised the tax allowance by �5k and achieved the same benefit for those with incomes under �100k. Anyone earning over �113,105 would have lost all their personal allowance and not benefit from any tax reduction.
If Labour really believed in the 50% tax rate then why not use that to fund the proposed tax reduction? I believe (but could be wrong) that it is because the 50% rate was just a very clever ploy - they knew it would raise virtually no additional revenue, after increased collection costs, but they could accuse the coalition of giving the rich a tax break if they scrapped it.
Instead of using the 50% rate, Labour are suggesting a mansion tax on properties valued at �2m or more. At just 1% that would be an extra �20k tax on a �2m property whilst one valued at �1.9m would pay nothing! Should we really base taxation on ownership rather than ability to pay?
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