Breaking: Tories say that it "cannot be our priority" to reverse 50p rate

Mike, Brighton

WHAT!!!

The Tories should say that "all bets are off" until we see the books. Labours numbers disagree with the IMF so we cannot commit to anything let alone a 50% tax rise until we know how deep the hole is that this government has created.

Philip Hammond is an idiot

Michael Fowke

Slags, the lot of them.

chris

Quite right too. This is just a trap. The well paid will have to take it on the chin for a while. When we're in, have a commission to say whether or not it brings in any extra tax, kicking the issue into the long grass. The well paid have had a good run with these labour idiots; they know it.

Bocephus

Hopefully by "not a priority to reverse" they mean it may have to wait until the afternoon of Day 1 rather than the morning.

If they don't then what's the point, they will destroy the economy every bit as much as Labour have.

TrevorsDen

Mike Brighton - No its you who are the idiot.

50p is a low priority.

Quite right. It will not raise money - probably cost money and growth. There is no need to do anything until after the election.

The election is possibly 12 months away. The markets have yet to react to Darlings likely overoptimism. No need top comment until then.

Reid has just said that nobody predicted the depth of this downturn and challenges anyone to come up with a name.
I think there are a few out there.

David Lindsay

My Right Honourable Kinsman could put to the top rate up to ninety-nine pence in the pound. Tony Blair, David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg still wouldn’t pay.

Ostentatiously high rates are beside the point. There wouldn’t be the slightest need for them if the enormously rich were not effectively exempt from tax anyway.

Ending that would bring in revenue beyond what were previously our wildest dreams. It would make it possible for the personal allowance to set permanently at national median earnings for full-time work (however much that happened to be at the given time), and for everyone to be guaranteed a minimum income of half that. And it would enable us to do these things on a flat rate of income with no further exemptions.

Just as there would still have to be child benefit payable to the mother (or the father in her complete absence), so there would still have to be the restored tax allowance for the father (or the mother in his complete absence). But apart from that, one Social Security payment, called and delivering Social Security, and bringing everyone up to half median earnings for full-time work. And one tax allowance, of twice Social Security, i.e., of median earnings for full-time work.

Carol

Mike - Do you think a new government should come in and the first thing it does is reverse the 50p tax rate? There are more important measures that Osbourne needs to address immediately. The country is heading for bankruptcy and the pips are being squeaked, not just for the mega earners. The Tories are instinctively low taxers anyway - they will do it when the time is right, but it's not 'the priority.'