One of the big challenges for the government in tomorrow’s Budget is how well the Number 10 machine is able to sell some of the positive measures that George Osborne will announce. Some are easy for voters to notice: cancelling the fuel duty rise, for instance. But others, like the personal tax allowance, need a bit more noise.
One Tory backbencher is currently trying to push an idea to the Treasury about how to do this: tell voters every time they get paid. Justin Tomlinson, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Personal Finance, will raise his idea in the post-Budget debate in the House of Commons on Thursday. Every payslip would tell an employee whether the government has made changes to their tax arrangements, and how much more or less they’re getting in pay as a result. Tomlinson tells Coffee House:
‘I very much support raising the personal tax allowance, but we should tell people that they have benefitted from these changes too. It will encourage consumer confidence, and in future when governments are trying to take money away, voters will be aware of that as well.’
It builds on Ben Gummer’s 2012 private member’s bill, which called on the government to set out how each taxpayer’s income tax and national insurance payments were being spent. That Bill was adopted by the government: this idea from Tomlinson would be a sensible next step.
Comments