Tories hit nail firmly on thumb

Their recommendations:

1. Scrap Inheritance Tax. Agreed. I've covered this before.

2. Scrap CGT on assets held for more than ten years. Nope, just scrap it. Scrap Stamp Duty on shares. Agreed. I've covered this before as well.

3. Reduce corporation tax to 25% and have 'targetted tax breaks'.

Dude, WTF? VAT raises £80 bn p.a., corporation tax raises £50 bn. VAT reduces output, increases the price that people have to pay and reduces the price that producers receive. It puts people out of business. For self-employed with turnover over the VAT threshold of about £63,000, it is like an extra income tax, it increases overall marginal tax rate to 50%.

Corporation tax on the other hand only has to be paid if you are making profits, so by definition does not put very many people out of business. It does not actually add to the cost of running the business. One man's 'targetted tax break' is another man's subsidy.

Damn ... we're in the EU, that's why we're not allowed to talk about reducing VAT (altho' we could reduce it to 15%).

Oh yes, and no mention of Employer's NIC, which raises another £40 bn. This adds to the cost of running the business, it widens the gap between the tax rate on the employer and the tax rate on the employee, so it reduces employment. The additional NIC can also be enough to put low-margin producers out of business.

4. Reduce corp tax for small companies to 20% 'the same as the standard income tax rate'. But the small companies rate is only 19% (possibly to be increased in near future) now so how is that a cut? Fuckwits. Secondly, the 'standard rate of income tax', i.e. tax plus National Insurance paid by basic rate employees is 33% (possible to be reduced in near future). So double fuckwits with knobs on.

5. The group says that one million more are paying higher rate tax and the threshold should be raised. Nice step in right direction, but how about getting rid of higher rate tax entirely? How about doing something about the effective tax rates of up to 100% on benefit claimants?

So, all in all, vote winning crap from people who don't know the first thing about anything and will just end up making things worse.