Taken from John Redwoods Diary
The UK is over taxed. The deficit has not been brought on by taxing too little, but by spending and wasting too much. Labour’s offence is not for setting tax rates that are too low, but wasting so much money on self promotion, poor purchasing, too much bureaucracy, political correctness – and above all on far too many people out of work and living on benefits. The total benefits bill is larger than the massive deficit, including huge spending on more than 5.5million people of working age without a job.
The taxes which are most damaging are the ones which tax saving and earning. We need to work harder, earn more, invest more. To do that the enterprise economy needs lower taxes on effort and success. We are not going to get the deficit down enough without getting many of the 5.5 million into work. We are not going to get it down without more tax revenue, and more tax revenue requires lower rates of tax to stimulate more income to tax, and more jobs to cut the benefits bill.
So I am wholeheartedly behind George Osborne when he recommends making a start with a lower Corporation Tax rate, with the possible abolition of IR 35 and other penal taxes on self employment, the reduction of Labour’s very high National Insurance, and his removal of non millionaires from Inheritance Tax. It’s the right direction for policy. I think we will need to do more to be sure of sufficient response from the enterprise economy to boost jobs and the revenues by enough.
Posted via web from Mark Hendy
