This is not a 10p tax moment

alan campbell

Cheerleader.

Mark

"In his final Budget statement to the Commons, the abolition of the 10p rate wasn’t even mentioned."

No.

"So having put in place more focused ways of incentivising work and directly supporting children and pensioners at a cost of £3 billion a year, I can now return income tax to just two rates by removing the 10p band on non savings income." - Gordon Brown, Budget speech 2007

Hugh

The fact that we are getting all this bad news suggests that we are being softened up, collectively, for much more.
Grin and bear it everyone, and stick pins into your image of Bruin, its got to be done.

david1

Doing your best to ignore the obvious, the huge anomoly that has been thrown up. One income of 44k bad, two incomes of 43k good, simple enough for even you to understand.

GDT

People need to remember why we are being given such nasty tasting medicine.
Blair, Brown and the rest of the ZanuLiebour left the UK with a particularly virulent infection.

Ncik

Did the Tories/Lib Dems know that it was this bad before the election? Yes.

Did the Tories/Lib Dems mention the removal of child benefit in their manifesto? No.

Did the Tories Lib Dems lie? Yes

http://dizzythinks.net

Err Brown didn't hide it at all. What happened was that people had started falling asleep and didn't notice when he said "I can now return income tax to just two rates by removing the 10p band on non savings income" and then went on to cut the second tier rate which had become the basic rate.

Ian Walker

James, the 10p tax "moment" wasn't the hiding in the budget, but the revelation of the con a year later, which alienated vast swathes of the core supporters.

So it is comparable. A lot of people voted Tory hoping to see the benefits culture dismantled. What perhaps they weren't expecting was for the nice easy target of higher-rate taxpayers to be first on the list. It's being potrayed as a "brave" decision but actually it's the worst kind of cowardice.

They've lost my vote.

Tiberius

I agree with what you say, James, except for the unreasonable step which is a 1,000 foot drop from GBP43,999 to GBP44,000, rather than a sloping path.

BTW I think Brown did allude to 10p about half way through the his speech, when he referred to a 10% withholding tax on investment income. Anyone have access to the recording of the speech to verify this?

Widmerpool

Not so sure! Reading the papers this morning this looks as if it was made up a bit on the hoof.
If so Osborne is living up to his nick name of Boy George!

Victor Southern

Much as I detest Brown I remember very clearly that at the conclusion of that budget speech he did say something about equalisation of tax bands now possible so the 10P rate would be abolished.

The fact that it took the essentially innumerate House of Commons a whole year to cotton on to its impact is another matter.

I posted on the Boulton & Co blog [then partailly used by civilised beings] that same day to point out what it really meant. I am sure that others also realised what was happening.

I find it impossible to understand the comments that Osborne's announcement came as a great shock. It was widely bruited about for at least the past 2 months. It is only the nitty gritty that needed clarification.

AG

I think that some of you are missing the point because our government is using the deficit as cover for a policy that is neat socialism. Socialists believe in increasing the tax on the 'rich' to give to the poor but we know from the Laffer curve what a dead end that is at current levels of taxation and all the rest. Go and look at Paul Waugh's blog if you don't believe me. GO is removing the 'relief' for stay at home mothers with higher income partners and that will produce less tax take overall because it removes reward for effort in the group that pays for most of everything including child benefit. This is designed to placate Labour's clients at the expense of natural Conservatives and therefore is comparable to the 10p tax blunder where Bruin turned on his own.

RKing

It's ironic that people are talking about the advantages of not combining income for couples with children but pensioners are penalised because they are NOT allowed to combine their incomes.
As it stands the person with the biggest pension is taxed to the max but often the spouse doesn't have a big enough pension to reach the threshold.
And for those of you who are not aware any pensioner earning above approx. £20,000 pa is taxed at about 33% (not sure of the actual figures).
Also the unemployed are to receive up to £500 per week max.
Many pensioners, who have contributed to their pension, rarely reach that figure even with combined pensions.

michael

With the potential gulf between gets and the don't gets so large, there's going to be a lot of 'fiddling'.... Accountants must be rubbing their hands.

Jobs for your boys George?

libertarian

WRONG,

It is the 10p blunder only worse. This is sound bite "power to the workers" lefty politics at its worst.

They hadn't got a clue of the ramifications of this off the cuff announcement. It shows what a total dog's breakfast our benefit/taxation system is.

Flat tax, remove all paybacks, welfare as a safety net only

AuldCurmudgeon

"One income of 44k bad, two incomes of 43k good, simple enough for even you to understand."

It isn't fair. It isn't even remotely fair. And no amount of double dutch, equivocation or patronising drivel will prevent people in marriages penalised by Conservatives from blaming Conservatives for it.

What made the Brownian 10p moment, the moment it became, was the inexorable slide from fury, into denial, into grudging acceptance, into retreat. Are Conservatives too stupid to retreat or too stupid to do it quickly?

Cheery Soul

I pity the minister who asked James 'reliable' Forsyth anything that didn't entail full-on Roonery. Oh for the days when the Speccie's political editor weren't clients of the leadership.

David Bouvier

So lets get some actual numbers out there...

A family with two people just below the threshold with 2 x £43,875 pay £14,960 of income tax. One person on £87,750 pays £25,030 of income tax or nearly ten thousand pounds more.

Not to mention NI, tax credits etc. that will increase the difference.

Equally, one person just over the threshold on £43,876 pays £7,840 in income tax, while two people on the same total income e.g. 2 x £21,938 only pay £6,185 of income tax, so are already better off by more than child benefit for one child.

If you actually care about the big picture rather than just obeying the dumb political rule that all change is bad, then you have to look at the big picture and evaluate overall the fairness and efficiency of the whole system - which is hopefully with universal credit will do.

And if you believe fundamentally in household benefits or individual benefits lets argue it through. And lets consider, fraud, abuse and incentives while we are at it.

But if I hear another person on a 90th percentile wage moaning about child benefit rather than criticising the state for taxing too much overall, I may loose my temper.

Widmerpool

Maybe a bit of special pleading in the press by all the Journos who £44k +?
See link below
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/69604,news-comment,news-politics,why-tory-hacks-have-got-it-in-for-george-osborne-and-his-child-benefit-reforms?DCMP=NLC-daily

Leo McKinstry

Using the means-tested criteria of household rather than individual income - as many of Osborne's critics have suggested - could produce even more unfairness. You would have a situation where someone on £43,000-a-year, with a partner who chooses not work, would be entitled to receive child benefit, yet a couple, both holding down low paid jobs on just £22,000-a-year, would receive nothing. We have to make a start somewhere in cutting benefits and reducing the deficit.

TGF UKIP

Bang on Alan Campbell, the Spectator now exists entirely as a house magazine plugging not just the Cameron Clique but this farce of a coalition - just see the increasingly brown-nosed posts of the Dear Editor.

Objective and dispassionate analysis has been suspended for the duration.

Kennybhoy

"Flat tax, remove all paybacks, welfare as a safety net only"

Equals Labour in power for a generation.

Paul Hawkins

and of course no changes are planned until 2013,so it could be that the detail will change before then.

I suppose at least Cameron has apologised' for the misleading manifesto content...perhaps Labour could try the same thing? Could be a lengthy apology.

stephencameron37@aol.com

I was a young boy when Child Benefit was first introduced. I was one of three brothers. My father was the senior parner of a successful firm of solicitors. He worked all the hours God sent and was reasonably prosperous although not "rich".
He did not go down to the pub on a Friday night and blow his wage packet in one fell swoop.
I eventually qualified as a solicitor,married and had three children
I did not go down to the pub and blow my wages in one fell swoop.
I always regarded it to be ridiculous that my mother and my wife received Family Allowance and/or Child benefit and I still do.
No doubt the arrangement kept several Civil Servants in non-jobs and does to this day.
Well done DC