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Gordon Brown Just Loves Payday !!!!!!
The Conservatives today renewed their assault on Gordon Brown’s 11th and final budget, dubbing it a “con trick“.
In the most eye-catching performance since Nigel Lawson in 1988, (ouch!) the Chancellor appeared to wrong-foot his Tory opponents with a promise to reduce income tax by 2p next year - the lowest rate for 75 years.
But George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, today told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that Mr Brown had confused the electorate into thinking that taxes were coming down.
“Their income tax bill went up yesterday and I don’t think after listening to that Budget they would have thought that,” he said.
“No-one listening to the Budget yesterday would have worked out that the whole thing is a con trick.”
Mr Brown this morning defended his performance, (he would wouldn’t he)Â denying it was misleading and claiming it was “nonsense” to suggest that he was taking away as much as he was giving. ( don’t they just love to lie )
He told Sky News: “We’ve made a number of changes to get to two rates and two thresholds.
“I’ve tried my best by everyone - on average, it’s £100 per household better off, for families with children about £250 per household and what I’ve tried to do is look at the needs of particular groups as we make this major change in the tax system.”
He said he was “trying to do the right thing by the country” ( yeh Right gordon) and claimed that after the discussion surrounding the Budget had died down, people would say he had done the right thing.
But both the Conservatives and the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies claim that many middle-class families and even lower earners would face higher bills.
Up to one family in five is likely to lose out, according to independent financial experts.
While the Chancellor promised to cut the basic rate from 22p to 20p, he also abolished the lower 10p starting rate.
It means taxpayers will start paying at 20p in the pound, effectively doubling the rate of tax for those earning less than £15,000 a year.
The Tory leader David Cameron said: “It’s not a tax cut, it’s a tax con”.
Gordon Can Con the public, Just Like That !!!
Mr Brown’s package was intended as the springboard for achieving his lifetime ambition of becoming Prime Minister - and trumping Mr Cameron with an audacious raid into traditional Conservative tax-cutting territory. The Chancellor also announced:
• Corporation tax cut from 30p to 28p.
• Inheritance tax threshold up to £350,000 from £285,000 in 2010.
• Upper limit for cash ISAs raised to £3,600 per year.
• Road tax on the highest-polluting vehicles raised from £210 to £300 from midnight last night and to £400 from April 1 next year. To build oxygen tents for mp’s so they can live to 170 years old like Micheal Jackson. They feel that Mps should get the real benefits of their fat Pensions.
• Diesel and unleaded petrol to go up by 2p a litre from October.
Another fuel crisis looming?
• Education spending in England to rise by 5 per cent a year to £74 billion in 2010.
The cut in basic rate tax will take effect in April 2008, when Mr Brown may be considering calling a snap election if he has achieved a “bounce” in the opinion polls.
The theatrical way in which he kept the cut until the closing seconds of his 48-minute speech delighted Labour MPs. Deflated Tories looked on glumly.
Mr Brown also tried to demolish Tory plans for “green” taxes on frequent fliers and a new tax allowance for married couples.
Labour MPs said it confirmed his status as Prime Minister-in-waiting. The Chancellor demonstrated his mastery of the Commons, brushing aside with a joke the criticism of his “Stalinist” style and openly acknowledging that he saw himself moving into No 10 within months.
The Tories accused him of using “smoke and mirrors” to achieve the promise of a 2p tax cut. He had taken one tax down after 99 tax increases. Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, said anyone earning less than £15,000 would pay more in income tax. The 2p reduction was “an income tax cut for the wealthy dressed up as a tax cut for the poor”.
The 2p cut will cost the Treasury more than £8 billion a year but abolishing the 10p starting rate will save £7.3 billion and higher national insurance charges will bring in another £1.1 billion.
The Tories said single people, couples without children and some middle-income earners would be hit by changes to tax and national insurance contributions, while lower-income families would have to apply for means-tested tax credits to get back the extra money they will be paying to the Treasury.
The Treasury claimed that by 2009, families with children would on average be £200 a year better off and a single earner couple with two children on £27,000 a year £500 a year better off.
The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies said the changes to personal taxes and tax credits would cost the Treasury £2.4 bn in 2009-10.
The institute’s Mike Brewer said: “The changes to personal taxes seem to have been carefully designed to ensure that this Budget is not a tax raid on the rich: those earning over around £42,000 a year will find their disposable income almost unaffected by the personal tax changes. However, almost one in five families in the UK will lose. Unusually for a Brown Budget, the losers come from across the income distribution, and include some families with children.”
The Budget “red book'’ published by the Treasury showed that the overall tax burden is set to rise from 39.2 per cent in the current year to 40.4 per cent by 2008-09.
Don’t you just love them?
ladies tops
