Rachel Reeves is a one woman walking political disaster area for the Labour Party.

The vast majority of Labour’s political screw-ups since the election have been caused by Rachel.

Will they allow her to carry on doing this?

1/9 The family farm tax row, which will both dominate the news for months and threaten Labour’s 100 rural seats was a totally unnecessary blunder.

Infuriating farmers for a measly £560m, enough to keep the NHS running for 25 hours, was a major mis-step.

The Labour Party appears to have adopted the "big lie" approach to communicating its tax and economic policy.

Labour's latest brazen lie is that they didn't hike NI when in fact it was the biggest tax increase in the budget.

This thread examines the big lie technique

1/9 “And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984

Incentives to invest in start-ups were shredded in Labour's budget

Labour can't claim that the tax hikes are needed to 'save the NHS' as HMRC's own analysis shows the "exchequer impact" is negligible

The policy seems based on ideological hatred of private investors

1/15 Investors' relief (IR) from Capital Gains Tax (CGT) was slashed, both by an 80% increase in the tax rate from 10% to 18% & a 90% cut in the lifetime limit on gains from £10m to a measly £1m.

IR's purpose was to increase investment into small companies through a lower CGT rate.

Labour lied about applying the death tax to family farms.

Shadow environment secretary Steve Reed when asked whether Labour intended to get rid of Agricultural Property Relief (APR) from inheritance tax replied, “we don’t”, adding, “we have no intention of changing APR”.

1/5 And of couse Keir Starner gave farmers the false impression that he wouldn't betray them, telling the NFU in Feb, "Every day seems to bring a new existential threat to British farming. You deserve better."

Farmer's leaders called the tax attack ‘nothing short of a betrayal'.

A handy compendium of 9 Labour pre-election statements on tax to compare against what they really do in the budget

“There is nothing in our plans that requires any further increases in taxes, I have confidence in that. Voters can have confidence."- Rachel Reeves

You judge

1/8 “None of the plans that we've drawn up, nothing in our manifesto is going to require us to raise taxes”. - Keir Starmer

Labour will raise inheritance tax (IHT) and remove IHT exemptions says the BBC

This looting of families will cause significant economic damage.

Some facts on the death tax in the mega-thread below

1/14 The high tax lobby falsely claims that IHT will only affect 4% of the population. Already one in four pensioners is a millionaire. Average house prices are now £296k in the UK and £524k in the capital. Such is the effect of inflation that soon most households will be paying IHT.

The FT reports that many business owners arre considrering whether to leave the UK.

“Every entrepreneur is talking about whether to move overseas. Some have done it already,” said Nimesh Shah, CEO of tax advisory firm Blick Rothenberg

1/6 “Business owners are fearing a bloodbath because of the messaging from government on higher taxes, so they’re thinking they need to take some dramatic action, because life-changing costs could be about to hit them,” Shah said. “So they’re thinking of accelerating their business sale or leaving the country.”

Bully state taxes are coming says Brian Monteith in @MoneyTelegraph

It addition to the predictable tax targets "Labour will introduce new taxes to find new ways to raise revenues or change our behaviour".

1/12 Some guidance on which new taxes is provided by a recent report from a Labour-aligned think tank, the IPPR, which calls for “new levies on unhealthy food, tobacco, vapes, gambling and alcohol” that “could raise over £10bn per year by the end of the decade”.

Rachel Reeves has just said “I think that we will have to increase taxes in the Budget.”

This directly contradicts the promises made in Labour's election campaign which Labour fought on the basis that taxes were too high & they wouldn't put up taxes on working people.

1/11 Rachel Reeves made it clear that "working people are those people who go out and work and earn their money through hard work."

She added that "there are people who do have savings, who have been able to save up & those are working people as well."

Why Labour can't increase taxes

After years of saying the tax burden was too high, Labour fought the election on the basis that taxes were too high & they wouldn't put up taxes on working people, wouldn't increase income tax, NI & VAT, & had no plans to put up other taxes

1/14 Who are 'working people'?

Keir Starmer, asked if he fell into his own description of “working man”, replied “yes, I’m a working person, I come within my own definition of a working person, which is earning my living, paying my taxes and knowing what it means to save money.”

Says Labour Shadow Minister Lisa Nandy: "At a minimum we should bring wealth taxes into line with income taxes - we go after the wealth... wealth is in assets & that's where we start"

Is Labour's bland & unrevealing manifesto a Trojan Horse, hiding all sorts of tax plans?

1/7 There's a lot of evidence of something odd going on

Earlier positions of Labour leaders point to a strong desire to hike taxes. Less than 3 years ago Starmer said "We're looking at income from property, income from dividends, shares etc. - all of those options are a wealth tax"

It's being floated that Labour may hike CGT but that would not be smart, not least because revenue will fall.

@Telegraph has now revealed the detailed HMRC figures analysing how much will likely be lost.

Last year @RachelReevesMP spoke out against hiking CGT, saying......

1/4 "There are people who have built up their own businesses who maybe at retirement want to sell that business.

They may not have had huge income through their life if they've reinvested in their business, but this is their retirement pot of money."

Fascinating article in @Guardian citing many Labour voters with kids at independent schools who will now not vote Labour because of its tax on education.

People put the interests of childen first.

It's worth taking the time to read the quotes in the thread below:

1/8 “To us, this is a tax on SEN,” said James, a 51-year-old IT manager from Hampshire, whose son is highly dyslexic but didn't qualify for additional state help.

“I have never voted for the Tories, but because of this I can’t vote for Labour," he said.

Labour says its new state company, Great British Energy, will result in lower bills but doesn't explain how

In fact it may result in both higher bills & higher taxes & levies

We can look at what happened in the 1990s when public sector electricity companies became private:

1/6 Electricity prices fell considerably in real terms in the 5 years after privatization - 10% for residential customers, 11.3% for small industrial customers, 17% for medium industrial customers, 16.5% and 6.7% for moderately large & extra large industrial customers.

15 questions for Labour on tax

Based on analysis of earlier statements by Labour politicians, advisers & think-tanks, we believe these are some of the key questions that Labour must answer.

1/5 Will you apply National Insurance (NI) to savings, investment & rental income?
Will you extend NI to people over the pensionable age?
Will you extend employer NI to employers’ contributions to pensions?
Will you increase the NI rates paid by the self-employed

Labour is trying to keep its tax policy secret but its outlines can be figured out from the policies developed by Labour think-tanks

Brian Monteith has reviewed those policies and summarised the key aspects of a future Labour tax policy for @MoneyTelegraph

Details below:

1/8 "Labour’s favourite think-tank, the Resolution Foundation, is pushing for a 300% increase in the National Insurance rate on self-employed taxpayers earning more than £50,270.

The hike to 8% would form part of a combined tax rate of 53% – & Labour hasn't repudiated the proposal."

Labour plans to reinstate a £1,073k pension lifetime allowance

55% of any amount above that will be confiscated by the state in a type of wealth tax

So if your pension investments grow too much a large chunk will be taken away in a direct penalty imposed on prudent savers

1/7 Before it weas scrapped by Jeremy Hunt the allowance was frozen at £1,073k since Spring 2021

The amount may seem high, but with inflation at an average level of 6% its real value in 2029 will be some £640k

Labour's tax will dissuade people from saving into pensions

Today Keir Starmer is promoting the extreme high tax agenda of Labour-aligned think-tanks.

He's the keynote speaker at an event to launch the Resolution Foundation's tax-hiking economic plan. Is it Labour's real tax policy?

Below we set out the tax hikes in their full horror Raise the capital gains tax (CGT) rate on shares to 37% & on other assets (mainly real estate) to as much as 53%

Charge CGT on death and on leaving the UK

Hike the basic rate of dividend tax from 8.75% to 20%

(Of course company profits have already suffered 25% corporate tax)

Keir Starmer is endorsing an extreme high tax agenda.

On Dec 4 Keir is the keynote speaker at an event to present the leftist Resolution Foundation's tax-hiking economic plan. Does this reveal Labour's real tax policy?

Below we set out the tax hikes in their full horror Raise the capital gains tax (CGT) rate on shares to 37% & on other assets (mainly real estate) to as much as 53%

Charge CGT on death and on leaving the UK

Hike the basic rate of dividend tax from 8.75% to 20%

(Of course company profits have already suffered 25% corporate tax)

How might Labour increase taxes?

Thread no 2 in series: VAT

VAT is the third largest source of UK tax revenue after income tax & NI

It's thus a key target for tax raisers & indeed the high-tax lobby are campaigning for VAT to be extended

6 ways Labour may increase VAT.

1/X 1. Reducing the VAT registration threshold from £85k to catch many more small businesses.

The argument of the likes of @DanNeidle is that the £85k threshold is a cliff-edge stopping business from growing. But lower the threshold and it would have the same effect on many more.

How might Labour increase taxes?

A series. Firstly National Insurance (NI).

NI is just another income tax but people don’t understand that so politicians think it's an easy one to hike.

A thread on 4 ways Labour may increase NI:

https://twitter.com/CutMyTaxUK/status/1658534677962186752

1. Increase the rate. The last Labour Govt. said it wouldn't increase income tax but then went and hiked NI, (1% each on employees & employers) claiming the money would go to fund the NHS

That was rubbish as NI like income tax goes into the general pot.