Broon Faces Tax Revolt

On his return from the USA, Gordon faces a back bench rebellion over the decision to remove the 10p tax band:

Gordon Brown returns to Britain to face trouble on the home front after his tour of the US, with the prospect of what one MP described as a parliamentary “train wreck” over the abolition of the 10p starting rate of tax.

Quite right, too. While Labour apologists will dodge the question of making poor people poorer by pointing out that Labour introduced the band in the first place, taking more money from those who can least afford it is reprehensible and belies the claim of looking after the less well off.

On the matter of taxation, I’ve been taking advice recently pending my move to France. As many people will be aware, France is generally regarded as a high tax economy, so I have been dreading how much I’ll get stung for. As it turned out, I was in for a surprise. As I will be working in the UK, I’ll still be paying tax and national insurance over here and declaring it to the French tax authorities. All that I will pay to the French system is anything over and above the difference between the British tax liability and the French one. Except that there isn’t a difference – well, there is, it’s the other way around, I will be paying more tax in the UK than I would in France if I was working over there and paying directly into their tax system. This is because they have more tax bands and they tax households rather than individuals, so most of my income will be taxed at a lower rate than it is over here. Don’t ask me to explain it, I’m still trying to get to grips with it myself, having been expecting to be hit rather harder than I will be. I could also argue that I’ll be getting better value for my money over there, too.

If the French can do it, so can the UK – that’s if you believe that income tax is a suitable method of raising tax. Not that I particularly want to get into that argument here. I’m sure if you ask him, Mark Wadsworth will be happy to explain more efficient methods – he is an expert in these matters, I am not.

So, when Labour supporters start to witter on about the “poor” as if they are some amorphous mass rather than individual people with individual needs and problems, I tend to look at how the government has actually behaved. They give with one hand and take away with another. Then they expect people to jump through bureaucratic hoops in order to get their own money back. One of my sisters has been through this nightmare and it isn’t funny.

New labour doesn’t give a fuck about “the poor”, its only concern is power. If they really did have any concern or compassion for the low paid, they would remove them from the tax regime entirely. That, though, would mean that they would have to cut government’s cloth to suit its income; shut down a few quangos, perhaps. Now, how likely is that to happen?

In the meantime, Brown suffering a humiliating commons defeat will be a joy to behold.