Downing Street Says

» Wednesday, April 30, 2008

10p Tax

Asked repeatedly if the Prime Minister had known in 2007 that there would be losers if the 10p tax rate was scrapped, the PMS said that when you undertook a tax reform of this kind you would have a reasonable idea of what the impact would be and that was something that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor had made clear in the past. The Chancellor and Yvette Cooper had also acknowledged this on the floor of the House of Commons. However, the issue had always been how we dealt with those affected and that was why we put in around £2.5 billion in Budget 2007, why we had done more in Budget 2008 and why we were signalling more help in the Pre-Budget report. The problem was that it was very difficult to come up with precise estimates because it was very difficult to know the exact circumstances of every individual and that everybody’s circumstances changed between years; the way people were affected, as would have been assessed this time last year, may be different if you were to do that assessment now.

Put that presumably, if it had been a mistake, it would have been the case that the Prime Minister did not see the figures for 2007, the PMS replied that what the Prime Minster had been saying was that he would have liked to have been able to do more for those who were affected; that was why we did do more in Budget 2008 and why we were saying that we would do more in the Pre-Budget Report.

Put that Frank Field MP had been told by the Chancellor that there would be no losers, the PMS said that he had not heard Frank Field say that and he had not heard the Prime Minister say that either.

1 Comment »

in my opinion the prime minister,who as chancellor was always prudent,must have known the effect the removal of the 10p tax limit would have on the low paid,just one more instance of how far labour has strayed from its costituency
Comment by denis briggs — 1 May 2008 on 8:20 pm | Link

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10p Tax

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