George Osborne effectively ruled out Nick Clegg's plans for an emergency tax on the rich today claiming the government should be wary of driving away the wealth creators.
George Osborne effectively ruled out Nick Clegg's plans for an emergency tax on the rich claiming the government should be wary of driving away the wealth creators.
Nick Clegg has called for a new “wealth tax” on richer Britons during the downturn to help the economic crisis.
But the Chancellor said the wealthy already paid enough tax. During a visit to Sunderland, where he announced an extension to the North East Enterprise Zone, he said: "I am clear that the wealthy should pay more which is why in the recent budget I increased the tax on very expensive property transactions.
"But we also have to be careful as a country we don't drive away the wealth creators and the businesses that are going to lead our economic recovery"
The Chancellor was questioned after the Deputy Prime Minister said that “people of very considerable personal wealth have got to make a bit of an extra contribution” towards what he describes as the “national effort”.
Mr Clegg will outline plans for his new wealth tax - which he suggests is necessary to ensure that British society remains “cohesive” - at the Liberal Democrats’ party conference next month.
The Coalition has already announced that the austerity programme of public spending cuts, including pay freezes in the public sector, will last for at least another two years until 2017.
The deputy Prime Minister says today that this is only fair if accompanied by higher taxes on the wealthy.
The Liberal Democrat intervention, months before the budget, is likely to infuriate the Conservatives and spark a new round of Coalition infighting.
It was described as a "dead end" by the Taxpayers' Alliance, which said it would "pose a huge danger to Britain's already struggling economy".
In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, the Liberal Democrat leader said: “If we are going to ask people for more sacrifices over a longer period of time, a longer period of belt tightening as a country, then we just have to make sure that people see it is being done as fairly and as progressively as possible.”
He added: “If we want to remain cohesive and prosperous as a society, people of very considerable personal wealth have got to make a bit of an extra contribution”.
One Tory MP, Bernard Jenkin, accused Mr Clegg of indulging in the "politics of envy", although Baroness Kramer, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman in the Lords, insisted no one in society must be given a "free ride" from paying their fair share of tax.
Mr Jenkin claimed the plan was little more than a "clap line" to curry favour with activists at the Liberal Democrat party conference, a suggestion that seemed to be backed by the admission by Lady Kramer during a radio interview that she had no advance notice of the policy.
She told an interviewer on BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I heard the plan for the first time just as you did, from Nick. It is going to be very interesting to hear the details."
telegraph.co.uk
George Osborne effectively ruled out Nick Clegg's plans for an emergency tax on the rich claiming the government should be wary of driving away the wealth creators.
Nick Clegg has called for a new “wealth tax” on richer Britons during the downturn to help the economic crisis.
But the Chancellor said the wealthy already paid enough tax. During a visit to Sunderland, where he announced an extension to the North East Enterprise Zone, he said: "I am clear that the wealthy should pay more which is why in the recent budget I increased the tax on very expensive property transactions.
"But we also have to be careful as a country we don't drive away the wealth creators and the businesses that are going to lead our economic recovery"
The Chancellor was questioned after the Deputy Prime Minister said that “people of very considerable personal wealth have got to make a bit of an extra contribution” towards what he describes as the “national effort”.
Mr Clegg will outline plans for his new wealth tax - which he suggests is necessary to ensure that British society remains “cohesive” - at the Liberal Democrats’ party conference next month.
The Coalition has already announced that the austerity programme of public spending cuts, including pay freezes in the public sector, will last for at least another two years until 2017.
The deputy Prime Minister says today that this is only fair if accompanied by higher taxes on the wealthy.
The Liberal Democrat intervention, months before the budget, is likely to infuriate the Conservatives and spark a new round of Coalition infighting.
It was described as a "dead end" by the Taxpayers' Alliance, which said it would "pose a huge danger to Britain's already struggling economy".
In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, the Liberal Democrat leader said: “If we are going to ask people for more sacrifices over a longer period of time, a longer period of belt tightening as a country, then we just have to make sure that people see it is being done as fairly and as progressively as possible.”
He added: “If we want to remain cohesive and prosperous as a society, people of very considerable personal wealth have got to make a bit of an extra contribution”.
One Tory MP, Bernard Jenkin, accused Mr Clegg of indulging in the "politics of envy", although Baroness Kramer, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman in the Lords, insisted no one in society must be given a "free ride" from paying their fair share of tax.
Mr Jenkin claimed the plan was little more than a "clap line" to curry favour with activists at the Liberal Democrat party conference, a suggestion that seemed to be backed by the admission by Lady Kramer during a radio interview that she had no advance notice of the policy.
She told an interviewer on BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I heard the plan for the first time just as you did, from Nick. It is going to be very interesting to hear the details."
telegraph.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment