Thursday 27 January 2011

PMQs - Outright lie of the week

Having been caught out telling porkies over the Gerry Adams saga, our Prime Minister is the gift which keeps in giving (Hansard, Col 287):

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend has a huge following in all parts of the House. The point he makes is important: it is that whatever your plans to encourage growth in the economy-we have the lowest corporate tax rate in the G7, we have abolished Labour's jobs tax, and we are investing in science and skills, all of which are necessary-without a plan to deal with the deficit, they are nothing.

WTF?

Labour had planned to increase Employer's and Employee's National Insurance contributions by 1% each from 6 April 2011 onwards, which is what the Tories referred to as 'Labour's jobs tax' in the run up to the 2010 General Election.

And this is exactly what is going to happen under the not-so-new Lib-Con government. For sure, the Lib-Cons hiked the threshold slightly, but it's the marginal rate that does the economic damage as much as the total tax burden.

The Labour opposition MPs are so bloody useless that none of them picked up on this.

10 comments:

john b said...

To be fair, DC spun it quite well. The only real response to a fake "we've abolished Labour's job tax" is "no, you lying tit, you've actually kept our job tax", which doesn't really help Labour...

Mark Wadsworth said...

JB, if you count 'getting away with a bare faced lie' as 'spinning well', then yes.

And the correct response from a Labour MP would have been: "No, you lying tit, you've not only kept our jobs tax but increased VAT by 2.5% as well, which we wouldn't have done"*

* Again, to be fair, Labour probably would have increased VAT as well, but there's no way of proving it.

Iain said...

If Cameron and Osborne think that employers' NI is a "jobs tax", why not abolish it altogether?

The only conclusion is that they prefer higher unemployment.

formertory said...

His Chancellor was doing a similar thing the other evening on the TV news; justifying tax rises and spending cuts he said (and I quote) "We're repaying the nation's credit card", which is an untruth; it merely may become true some time after 2015. In reality, they're still running up the balance.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Iain, exactly.

FT, good point. And I've seen plenty of tax hikes, but which cuts, exactly?

Scott Wright said...

"FT, good point. And I've seen plenty of tax hikes, but which cuts, exactly?"

Stupid ass cuts to corporation tax (paid for by screwing people on capital allowances) which will damage fixed asset heavy business like the entire transportation industry...

Scott Wright said...

Oh and to add.

Now that i've calculated my new net pay & tax credit amounts after they published the rates & tables, i'm better off on both of those. Still have a marginal tax rate of 82% from next year like but ho-hum....

Mark Wadsworth said...

SW, those constant changes to WDA rates are infuriating. Glad to hear you end up a few pence better off under the new rules, but as you say, your marginal rate is now a handsome 82% (does that include Employer's NIC and VAT on top?).

Scott Wright said...

No i'm not including VAT in that, my 82% starting from 6/4/11 is as follows:

Tax 20%
NI 12%
Student Loans 9%
Tax credits 41%

I am lucky enough to get my income through 2 jobs and therefore save a nice little chunk of NI over that of a single employment on my total salaries. It seems that the massive increase to the base amount of the child element of tax credits is what gives it the boost and means we don't lose out massively. I did read somewhere that from April 2012 further changes may make the situation much worse though...

Mark Wadsworth said...

SW, aha, I forgot the SLR. Try that calculation again with Er's NCI and VAT.