John Redwood, in The Daily Mail:
Senior Tory MP John Redwood last night... said: ‘Lib Dem activists can do what they like but I do not think the Coalition Government is interested in finding more ways of taxing people.’
Apart from that VAT hike, eh? Which the Lib Cons claim will increase the tax burden by £11.4 billion in tax per annum...
Henderson’s chief economist Simon Ward in City AM:
“This [increase in food price inflation] could warrant postponing or cancelling the coming VAT hike,” Ward cautioned. He said the better-than-expected public sector borrowing numbers could justify cancelling the VAT rise, thereby cutting one percentage point off headline inflation.
However, a Treasury spokesman insisted the VAT hike is here to stay, arguing that controlling inflation is a matter for the Bank of England and its monetary policy tools.
Unlike the Treasury spokesman, Mr Henderson obviously didn't read the EU memo saying that Member States have to harm-onise their main VAT rate at 20% (to be fair, countries with hitherto very high main rates have reduced them slightly).
Tough but fair
1 hour ago
4 comments:
Apart from that VAT hike, eh? Which the Lib Cons claim will increase the tax burden by £11.4 billion in tax per annum...
Precisely.
To be fair, perhaps you could show us a copy of "the EU memo saying that Member States have to harm-onise their main VAT rate at 20%"? The article you linked to carries supposition about harmonisation of rates but absolutely no evidence.
AC, OK, try here.
In any event, what's worse: voluntarily increasing the most stupid and damaging tax of all to raise very little net extra revenue; or doing what the EU tells you to do?
"Apart from that VAT hike, eh? Which the Lib Cons claim will increase the tax burden by £11.4 billion in tax per annum..."
Well, unless there's been an unusual outbreak in honesty in the ruling classes, I suspect what they actually claimed was that it would increase the tax revenue by £11.4 bn, implying that this extra money magically came from somewhere other than the productive economy.
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