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.

Labour's Shadow-Shadow Chancellor, Angela Rayner, has been growling again about increasing capital gains tax (CGT) and decrying the "gap" between CGT and income tax rates.

Angela needs to be educated on some basic facts about capital gains tax.

This thread tries to help her: It would be good to eliminate the supposed "gap" by bringing income tax rates down to CGT levels, but of course there is no intellectual basis for claiming that capital gains resemble income.

Gains result from taxed income put at risk, whereas income is payment for work.

Excessive taxes on branded medicines supplied to the NHS threaten not just pharmaceutical investment into the UK but also UK patient access to innovative new treatments.

Pharma companies are stepping up their warnings of the long-term effects of these tax rises.

A short thread: The increased tax is "a real risk to inward investment, the UK’s place as a life science destination, and, importantly, threatens our ability to get the latest medicines to UK patients,” said Véronique Walsh, general manager at Gilead Sciences UK

High tax zealots are currently trying to get Labour to commit to a wealth tax.

Recent headlines about massive capital flight caused by Norway's wealth tax have highlighted the foolishness of this approach

This thread details the negative wealth tax experience of many countries More than a dozen European countries used to have wealth taxes, but nearly all of these nations scrapped them, including Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Sweden.

Why?

Former Bank of England Governor Lord King destroys the case for CBDCs - see his analysis in the thread below.

So why is the Bank of England still pressing ahead?

#CBDCs #CBDC #Britcoin "CBDCs are about ways of making payments; they are not a new currency."

"Whether a country needs a CBDC is really about the state of its current payments system," he pointed out in the House of Lords this month..

The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee has attacked CBDCs, saying that they are a “solution in search of a problem.”

Here we list some of the threats and risks identified by the House of Lords.

A thread:

#CBDC #CBDCs #KeepCash PRIVACY:

“A CBDC system could not support anonymous transactions....

This lack of anonymity is to prevent CBDCs facilitating large-scale criminal activity, and to ensure a CBDC system complies with national disclosure laws that apply to payments"….

7 reasons why a UK CBDC should scare you👇 🧵

It's coming coming faster than you think - educate yourself below 1/ CBDCs mean Central Banks have "absolute control" over any regulations they want + the technology they need to enforce them (via @DowdEdward ⬇️ )

https://twitter.com/DowdEdward/status/1624258852379320320

Fun facts on the UK tax code, the longest in the world.

Its complexity is yet anther way in which tax is holding Britain back. A thread: The UK tax code is over 21,000 pages long and contains over 10 million words.

That's about 12 times the length of the Complete Works of Shakespeare and 12.5 times the number of words in the Bible (800,000 words).

Corporate tax should be zero, points out Stuart Kirk in an excellent article in the FT

Scrapping corporation tax would remove myriad distortions and inefficiencies 1/6 "Companies are generally seen as fair game when it comes to taxes. It looks much better on television to target the global headquarters of a faceless mega-firm than a hard-up family with bills to pay. And therein lies the problem," says @stuartkirk__.....2/6

A shocking new study of official UK Gov data from @Civitas_UK has revealed that a record 54.2% of individuals now live in households which receive more in benefits than they pay in direct and indirect taxes. A thread: Moreover 83% of all Income Tax is paid by just 40% of British adults

And more than half – 53% – is paid by the top 10% of earners, three times as much income tax as the bottom 60% – despite this group being six times larger.

Another leading British businessman has lambasted the Government's tax polices.

Sir Rocco Forte says "the Government is paralysing the economy with taxes." "Individuals who are relatively low earners are being subjected to draconian levels of taxation. No one on £50k can be considered rich – indeed many families on this level of income are still in receipt of benefits – but that is the point at which the 40% tax rate kicks in."

A thread on the Hat Tax.

The hat tax was introduced by PM Pitt the Younger’s government in 1784 as a means of raising extra revenue. The theory was that rich people had more hats. The tax had two components:
1. a licence that hat retailers were forced to buy, accompanied by a compulsory sign “Dealer in Hats by Retail.” The licence cost £2 in London and 5 shillings elsewhere.
2. a requirement for each hat to have a revenue stamp pasted inside on its lining.

If you are successful in Scotland 54% of your income will be confiscated if you start to earn over £43,663.

A thread on how the SNP Government’s tax increases will undermine the Scottish Government’s revenue base. 1/9 Employees living in Scotland earning between £43,663 and £50,270 will now pay 22% more than their counterparts elsewhere in the UK, - a 54% tax rate - as the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland has highlighted. 2/9

Why should taxpayers be forced to fund the anti-taxpayer, public sector lobby misnamed the Institute for Fiscal Studies? - A thread

Today it called for another tax rise: The IFS argues for increased taxes to fund the public sector. That's no surprise as it's to all intents and purposes part of the public sector. In 2020, the last year for which this "transparent" body published accounts, 64% of its budget was paid for by the UK government.

Now we have Labour support for cutting taxes.

But could Labour really become the low tax party? 1/5 "I want taxes to come down for working people. They've been really clobbered time and time again, whether that's on income tax, whether it's National Insurance or council tax," said Keir Starmer.

"The highest tax since WW2 - this really is anti-Conservative stuff.” 2/5

This thread explains how you can live somewhere else with lower taxes & better weather but still work in the UK.

Countries are falling over themselves to attract remote workers by issuing ‘digital nomad’ visas. We provide the details below: 1/12 It won't work for everyone but if you can work from home you don't need that home to be in Britain.

You can be based in another country or countries, just visiting the UK for up to 3 months a year and possibly pay no tax at all anywhere. 2/12