In his three years as Tory leader, David Cameron consistently rejected pressure from inside his own party to promise tax cuts. There were two reasons: polling by his strategist Steve Hilton showed that, at the 2005 election, voters didn't believe the Tories would deliver the tax cuts they promised. Secondly, Gordon Brown always converted Tory pledges to cut taxes into "Tory spending cuts...

Tory MPs are calling for big tax cuts to kick-start the economy in today's mini-Budget, even though David Cameron opposes the "fiscal stimulus" to be announced by the Chancellor Alistair Darling. A survey of MPs by ComRes for The Independent shows that Tory backbenchers support using tax cuts to stimulate the economy by a two to one margin. A large majority fear the "green" taxes proposed by ...

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

I have perhaps been guilty of extolling the merits of replacing all existing property/wealth based taxes with Land Value Tax or replacing the entire Welfare State with a Citizen's Income scheme, so today, let's look at slimming down The State and simplifying/flattening The Big Taxes - Income Tax, National Insurance, VAT and Corporation Tax - i.e. taxes on enterprise, work and investment....

Asking whether tax cuts are the answer to the current economic crisis may be seen by some of my comrades-in-arms as an astonishing question for me, of all people, to raise. As a small government, low tax Thatcherite, I have called for lower taxes ever since I became interested in politics some twenty years ago. Low taxes are morally right as it means that citizens have the opportunity to decide wh...

THE possibility of tax cuts before the next general election depends on "how things develop" between now and then, George Osborne says.

The Conservatives now have two whole policies: giving massive inheritance tax cuts to millionaires; offering tiny tax advantages for marriage*. But what values link these two ideas together? For example, Liberal Democrat plans to close tax loopholes for the richest, tax pollution and tax multi-million mansions will fund tax cuts of £700 for everyone on low and middle incomes (so you can make...

The Conservatives now have two whole policies: giving massive inheritance tax cuts to millionaires; giving tiny tax bribes for marriage*. But what values link these two ideas together? For example, Liberal Democrat plans to close tax loopholes for the richest, tax pollution and tax multi-million mansions will fund tax cuts of £700 for everyone on low and middle incomes (so you can make your ...

Quick bit of speculation. Let's say that Brown meets the rampant speculation and cuts some taxes. Let's say he cuts them by £10bn. How will he answer the charge that £10bn in tax cuts is equal to £10bn in spending cuts? After all, in response to the Lib Dems extremely modest proposals for tax cuts worth £20bn he has been very clear that it would mean £20 billion of public spending cuts. For t...

David Cameron has accused Labour of secretly planning to raise taxes after the next general election after it emerged that the Treasury had considered increasing VAT.