At Conference, Danny Alexander repeated his view that the personal allowance for income tax should be raised beyond £10,000, saying: In the next Parliament, I want us to go further; our aspiration should be that someone working full time on the minimum wage should pay no income tax at all. An income tax threshold of

There has been a lot of a chat recently about how the Local Income Tax will prove to be a new Poll Tax. So I thought I would do a comparison: A poll tax is a tax of a uniform, fixed amount per individual (as opposed to a percentage of income). A Local Income Tax will be an extra 3% on our Income Tax, paid through PAYE. Per Wikipedia: The (poll tax) system was unpopular. It seemed to shift the tax ...

Later this morning, Nick Clegg will be giving a speech to the Resolution Foundation in which, after recent talk about wealth taxes, he is returning to the topic of income tax cuts. More specifically, speeding up the progress towards a basic income tax allowance of £10,000 whilst keeping the 50p rate. This is of course closely

Duncan argues that a wealth tax might be a good way of raising more revenue post-recession. There is a lot of discussion about how income tax is evaded and avoided. A wealth tax may well face the same problems - however it also offers the potential to tax accumulated wealth that may not have faced income tax. It also widens the tax burden to cover those who may have large amounts of assets but are...

Setting: The Future The government today announced that a new tax to be imposed on money gained from previous tax cuts. Speaking outside the Treasury, the Chancellor said: “After introducing our tax cuts last year we found that people had more money.  That increase in income led us to believe that we should tax it.  If we didn’t give

As the argument in Scotland rages about LIT, it seems that there is softening in England over the Local Income Tax policy. First of all, Michael Portillo, former Conservative minister has come out in favour of LIT. “Having thought hard about local government finance, I am convinced that an income tax supplement must be part of any

That's what the BBC is reporting. The higher income tax rate won't, however, apply until after the next election and only for those earning £150,000 or more. Keeping income tax rates down was one of the landmark pledges associated with...

Hang on a minute, Swinney says "We cannot put together a stable majority to enable us successully to steer detailed local income tax legislation through this parliament." - So the SNP ditch the local income tax this afternoon Swinney adds in his speech: "The Cabinet has therefore decided not to introduce legislation to abolish the unfair council tax and replace it with a local income tax until aft...

Nick Clegg is right when he says that “Labour are on the wrong side of the biggest issue in British politics – the argument about the big state versus the smaller state.” But which side are the Liberal Democrats on? His plans for tax cuts look about as sound as a No10 soufflé. The 4p cut in income tax would be replaced by a local income tax – so a tax shift, not a tax ...

Every graduate in England and Wales will pay 9% of their income above £21,000, for up to 30 years, just as they would a graduate tax; below that, they will pay nothing. Irrationally from the government’s point of view these income-contingent loans are much less efficient than a proper graduate tax; at best, 70% of