Category Archives: Income tax

Budget 2024: Jeremy Hunt announces 2p cut in national insurance

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Chancellor also scraps ‘non-dom’ tax breaks and slashes capital gains on property in pre-election gambit

Jeremy Hunt has announced a 2p national insurance cut in his budget as a pre-election gambit to revive flatlining opinion poll ratings and reboot Britain’s economy from recession.

In what could be the last major economic intervention before voters go to the polls, the chancellor said the government was making progress on its economic priorities and could now help hard-pressed families by permanently lowering certain taxes.

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HMRC struggling to cope as customer service levels hit ‘all-time low’

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New report notes ‘continued decline’ and rising call-waiting times as ‘fiscal drag’ pulls growing numbers of people into an ailing system

Customer service levels at HM Revenue and Customs have sunk to an “all-time low”, parliament’s spending watchdog has said.

Users regularly encounter long call-waiting times as the tax department apparently struggles to cope with demand, a report by the cross-party public accounts committee (PAC) has found.

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Jeremy Hunt’s budget giveaway ‘will act as sweet filling in tax sandwich’

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Thinktank says juicy cuts this year follow far bigger increases in 2023 and precede planned ‘chunky rises’

Jeremy Hunt’s expected pre-election giveaway budget will be sandwiched between £20bn of tax increases already implemented and a further £17bn of hikes pencilled in for after polling day, a thinktank has said.

The Resolution Foundation said it expected Hunt to freeze fuel duty and cut income tax on 6 March but warned the chancellor’s “tax sandwich” was based on the “fiscal fiction” of £30bn of spending cuts in the next parliament.

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Sunak says he wants to reduce workers’ taxes this year and may cut benefits

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PM sets up possibility of income tax coming down in March and says control of welfare is a priority

Rishi Sunak has said he wants to cut taxes for working people further this year, possibly cutting welfare payments to fund it.

The prime minister said on Sunday his priority before the budget in March would be further tax cuts, which he said would entail stricter controls on public spending and benefits.

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One in five workers will be higher-rate taxpayers by 2027 – IFS

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Jeremy Hunt’s freeze on allowances and thresholds will put a quarter of teachers and one-eighth of nurses in 40% income tax bracket

One in four teachers and one in eight nurses will be higher-rate taxpayers by 2027 as a result of the government’s record freeze on income tax allowances and thresholds, according to a leading thinktank.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said better-paid public sector workers will be among the almost 8 million people – one in five of all taxpayers – who will pay income tax at 40% or above as result of the Treasury’s attempt to reduce the UK’s budget deficit.

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Autumn statement 2022 live: OBR says living standards to fall 7% as Hunt confirms millions to pay more taxes

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Fiscal watchdog’s figures show eight years of growth wiped out; chancellor announces higher taxes and some cost of living support

In the Commons Rishi Sunak is making a statement about the G20 summit. These statements are normally routine, and just summarise what was said or decided at the meeting. They don’t normally include fresh announcements.

Sunak started by talking about the missile incident in Poland. He said Russia attacked Ukraine with missiles on the day that he “confronted the Russian foreign minister across the G20 summit table”. He said the blame for the missile landing in Poland lay with Russia. Ukraine could not be blamed for defending itself, he said.

During the bombardment of Ukraine on Tuesday an explosion took place in eastern Poland. The investigation into this incident is ongoing and it has our full support.

As we’ve heard the Polish and American presidents say, it is possible the explosion was caused by Ukrainian munition which was deployed in self-defence.

In just a few moments the chancellor will build on these international foundations when he sets out the autumn statement, putting our economy back on to a positive trajectory and restoring our fiscal sustainability.

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Wealth taxes could raise £37bn for UK public services, campaigners say

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Tax Justice UK calls on Rishi Sunak’s government to introduce five reforms targeting the richest people

Rishi Sunak’s new government could raise up to £37bn to help pay for public services and the energy bills support scheme if it introduced a string of “wealth taxes”, according to tax equality campaigners.

Tax Justice UK called on the government to introduce five tax reforms targeting the very wealthy, who the campaign group said had done “really well financially” during the coronavirus crisis and national lockdowns, rather than seek to save money with further cuts to public services.

Equalising capital gains tax with income tax could raise up to £14bn a year. At present many well-paid people collect their salaries via sole trader or business partnership companies, and can pay capital gains tax at a rate of 20% rather than income tax, which is as high as 45% for earnings over £150,000. CGT also applies to income from renting out a second home, and dividend income on stocks and shares.

Applying national insurance to investment income could raise £8.6bn.

Closing loopholes on inheritance tax could raise £1.4bn.

Scrapping the non-dom regime and taxing their offshore income could generate £3.2bn.

And introducing a 1% tax on super-rich people’s assets over £10m could raise an additional £10bn.

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Jeremy Hunt to detail mini-budget U-turn to MPs after Penny Mordaunt insists PM had ‘genuine reason’ for missing Commons question – live

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Latest updates: chancellor to make statement after leader of Commons denied PM was hiding under a desk

Judging by what Conservative MPs have been telling journalists in private over the last few days, the consensus (but not unanimous) view among Tories seems to be that Liz Truss will have to be replaced as party leader before the next election. But very few MPs are saying that in public, and Sky’s Tom Larkin, who is running a spreadsheet of Tories calling for Truss’s resignation, has only got three names on it.

Damian Green, the former first secretary of state, was on the Today programme and you would expect him to be on the Larkin list. He is chair of the One Nation Conservatives caucus, the group most horrified by Truss’s experiment with hardline free market ideology. But he insisted that Truss did have the credibility to carry on as PM, despite the fact she is abandoning most of the key tax policies at the heart of her leadership campaign. He explained:

She is a pragmatist - she’s realised that the first budget didn’t work in spectacular fashion, so she’s now taken the sensible view that we will now try something else, and she’s appointed a very sensible chancellor in Jeremy Hunt.

I obviously don’t know what he’s going to say, but clearly what he’s going to do is already beginning to reassure the markets, and I hope will continue to do so afterwards.

Yes, because if she leads us into the next election, that will mean that the next two years have been a lot more successful than the past four weeks have been. That would not only be good for the Conservative party, that would be particularly good for the country as well, so I think everyone would welcome that.

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IFS: Millions in Britain ‘face stealth tax raid’ under Liz Truss’s plans

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For every £1 given workers by cutting tax rates £2 was being taken via freeze on income tax thresholds, thinktank calculates

Millions of households are facing a “stealth” tax raid under Liz Truss’s government despite her promise to support workers through the cost-of-living crisis by lowering their tax bills, Britain’s leading economic thinktank said on Wednesday.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has calculated that for every £1 given to workers by cutting headline tax rates, £2 was being taken away through a freeze on the level at which people begin paying tax on their earnings.

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Kwasi Kwarteng set to address Tory conference with authority on the line after 45% tax rate U-turn – UK politics live

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Chancellor expected to give changed address after confirming plan to axe top rate of income tax has been scrapped

Q: Where does this leave your credibility?

Kwarteng says he has been in parliament for 12 years. He says ministers do sometimes change their minds.

I decided, along with the the prime minister, not to proceed [with the policy].

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Labour delegates urged to back PR to end ‘trickle-down democracy’ – UK politics live

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Latest updates: Labour delegate says current electoral system allows Tories to get away with measures like ‘protecting bankers’ bonuses’

In June, as the RMT union launched what has become an ongoing series of strikes, Keir Starmer ordered Labour frontbenchers and shadow ministerial aides not to join picket lines. This infuriated leftwing Labour MPs and some union leaders, notably Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite.

At one point it looked as if there might be a huge row at conference about whether shadow ministers should or should not be allowed to join picket lines. But, in an interview with the Today programme this morning, Graham suggested that a truce of sorts has been agreed – even if the two sides do not entirely see eye to eye.

My issue about this … isn’t necessarily around one person on a picket line because, quite frankly, that isn’t the issue. The issue is the mood music [ordering shadow ministers not to join picket lines] suggests. It suggests a mood music that being on the picket line is somehow a bad thing. It’s a naughty step situation.

The party who is there to stick up for workers should not give the impression – that’s the problem, it gives the impression – that they are saying picket lines are not the place to be. And I think that it was unfortunate. I think it was a mistake. I think, to be honest with you, Labour knows it was a mistake. And I don’t actually think it’s holdable.

When people go on strike it is a last resort at the end of negotiations. And I can quite understand how people are driven to that … I support the right of individuals to go on strike, I support the trade unions doing the job that they are doing in representing their members.

I’m incredibly disappointed that as delegates we’ve been excluded from this key part of the conference’s democratic process.

This is an unprecedented move silencing members’ voices. Our CLP sent us here to Liverpool to promote our motion on public ownership and a Green New Deal, but we’ve been unfairly denied that right.

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Treasury considers ways to ease cost of living in spring statement

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Reluctant to make big fiscal changes, chancellor Rishi Sunak considers tax adjustments and fuel duty cut

The Treasury has drawn up a range of options to help with the cost of living crisis – including a 1p cut to income tax, raising the national insurance threshold and a significant cut to fuel duty.

But government sources said Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, was still reluctant to make big fiscal changes.

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