BORIS JOHNSON sparked Tory civil war yesterday with his plan for a £10 billion tax giveaway for big earners. Rivals branded the pledge “unfair” on struggling Brits. And ex-Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom said she doubted the plan would ever get through Parliament – given the Tories don’t have a majority. “In reality it will be […]
BORIS JOHNSON sparked Tory civil war yesterday with his plan for a £10 billion tax giveaway for big earners.
Rivals branded the pledge “unfair” on struggling Brits.
And ex-Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom said she doubted the plan would ever get through Parliament – given the Tories don’t have a majority.
“In reality it will be impossible to actually get whole-scale tax changes through,” she said.
The former Foreign Secretary stepped up his campaign for No.10 by vowing to increase the point at which people start paying the higher rate of income tax from £50,000 to £80,000.
He said the move – costing £9.6 billion a year – would be funded from the £26 billion of ‘fiscal headroom’ set aside by the Treasury for No Deal preparations.
Critics pointed out that under the plans, Boris Johnson would get a £3,000 tax cut – while the average household, earning £28,000 a year, would miss out.
Brexit hardman Dominic Raab added that the Conservative Party would have no chance of winning back Labour marginal seats unless it used tax cuts to help lower earners.
He said: “I’d much rather be going there saying I’m going to cut taxes for the lowest paid in work than succumbing to what would inevitably look like the caricature that you are the party of privilege and you are only in it to help the wealthy.”
Some 4 million people now pay the 40p rate of income tax – up from 1.7 million in 1990. Hundreds of thousands were dragged into the higher rate after former Chancellor George Osborne repeatedly froze the threshold.
Jeremy Hunt has pledged to use the No Deal ‘reserve’ to cut corporation tax. Mr Raab has already vowed to take the basic rate of income tax down from 20p to 15p.
Paul Johnson at the Institute of Fiscal Studies, said it was “absurd” to say tax cuts could be funded from cash set aside for No Deal.
He stormed: “They are funded by higher borrowing or lower spending. That’s it.”
