Cameron talks tax

steveb

No point in voting Tory then.

mark

Vote Tory as that is the only realistic prospect of getting this lot out. Now if some other right of centre party were electable.........

Salvatore

Cutting taxes is an excellent principle, but in practice any commitment to do so will attract substantial political fire, and will only probably be possible when attention is firmly focussed on the inefficiencies of present public service delivery.
That is difficult whilst the Tories are in opposition, because most of the senior public service officers were appointed under the Labour regime, and any admission of failure would be tantamount to saying they were themselves poor managers.

Perry

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! The treatment isn’t working is it?

dominica

The first thing that the Tories will need to sort out is the state of the economy. We all knew that Prudence was never really there but it is only now becoming evident to the masses who were so taken in by Brown's lies.

Once the client-state "non jobs" have been culled and other costs brought under control, then is the time to start cutting taxes - cutting them a long way.

Just my two penneth.

David

I see tax cuts are still considered the be all and end all. Some people never learn.

Dan

Erm - as government borrowing is just taxes delayed, Cameron and Osborne should, of course, be worried about the tax burden plus governement borrowing

Perry

Wise words, Dominca.

Ian C

What Cameron (is wisely) not saying yet is that taxation can be re-structured to be simpler, greener, fairer etc. He would be unwise to let loose this agenda until the election campaign. While we have little evidence that he is planning to do this, I think we should give him some credit for being intelligent enough to know that this is likely to get British centrist/moderate voters juices flowing and an egenda along these lines would be a much better considered offensive weapon than a tax-cutting one. This is necessary in any event before we can bring down the overrall burden to anywhere near the 30-35% that needs to be the ultimate (20 year) goal.

Ian C

Your 'bring it on' quip Fraser is worthy of a tabloid. Leave it out.

WitanSpeaker

Quite so.
Spending = Tax + Borrowing.
Reduce tax without a commensurate reduction in spending and borrowing goes up and you would have thought £600 billion in debt was quite enough to be going on with just at the moment.

The only way to achieve tax cuts is to reduce spending and that means a bold decision for government to stop doing things. All we want to know is what the Conservative Party wishes the state to stop doing.

A few suggestions: scrap tax credits, much of the welfare sump, net payments to the EU, outreach and other assorted Marxist sponsorship.

Any other suggestions?

Damon Lambert

So Dave subscribes to the Brown(ie) view that cutting tax rates means a reduction in tax revenues, despite contrasting evidence in virtually every other English speaking country.

Dave should consider what will happen to tax revenues if taxes stay at the current uncompetitive levels; its arrogant to assume that business and individuals will continue to pay the same levels of tax for overpriced ineffective public services, especially when other states offer better quality for less (tax) price.

Fraser Nelson

Damon, part of this is built into the Treasury. Their accounting system does not factor in the link between avoidance/incentive and marginal rates - so all of Whitehall is taught to calculate that a 1p reduction in income tax is a net loss to the Treasury and will forever remain so. No lessons learned from JFK et al.

Damon Lambert

True Fraser, but there's no need for the Tories to make the same mistake.

The Tax Reform Commission, set up by George Osborne, called for a dynamic model which would show the impact of tax cuts, just like the US has, but that part of the TRC seems to have been implicitly rejected by the Tory party.

Trumpeter Lanfried

Fraser @ 1.16 PM. Astonishing! And I assume Gordon Brown, in all his years at the Treasury, never spotted this fundamental flaw in their forecasting systems? Or was it like this:

Sir Humphrey: 'Minister, Here's how we can lower taxes AND increase our revenue.'
Gordon Brown: 'Not listening, Not listening' [Fingers in ears.]

Peter Gardner

Er, not so, I strongly suspect. Is Mr Nelson stuck in the three-party mindset? UKIP is almost certain to stand on a platform of tax cuts.