Alistair Darling introduces 50% tax rate
With a blatant disregard to the Labour Party manifesto of 2005, which promised no income tax rises within this Parliament, Alistair Darling yesterday announced an increase in the planned 45% tax rate up to 50% for those earning in excess of £150,000 a year. As we covered in one of our earlier post, many people see this as a political move rather than a taxation issue as it has re-ignited the so-called "class wars".
This is a major offensive by the UK government which is now looking towards next year's general election and trying to divide and conquer UK voters and attract more "old Labour" supporters back to the fold. It will be interesting to see how voting patterns change over the next few days when we see a significant number of polls released into the public domain. This policy of divide and conquer has already impacted upon many areas of the UK population and could spectacularly implode or see a significant increase in the Labour vote.
So far the Conservative party has not fallen into this "elephant trap" with a suggestion, albeit with signs of discontent from within the party, that the 50% tax rate will not be among their priorities if they regain power in 2010.
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