Summary
If you are in a hole, the best advice is to stop digging. The Conservatives stumbled into a crevasse on the opening day of their conference in Birmingham. Keen to add some substance to his mantra of "we're all in this together", Chancellor George Osborne revealed that child benefit was to be abolished for higher rate taxpayers from 2013. He was clearly hoping that in place of the axe that has become a permanent feature of his cartoon persona, he might be portrayed carrying a big banner emblazoned with the word fairness. "It is very difficult to justify taxing people on low incomes to pay for the child benefit of those earning so much more than them," he explained. He is right about that.
However, no sooner were the words out of his mouth than commentators were pointing out that it was actually rather unfair to penalise a single income family on pound(s)44,000 while a dual income family on pound(s)86,000 could continue to receive the benefit. For families with three children, the difference will amount for pound(s)2500 a year. What about all those middle class stay-at-home mums whose votes David Cameron had worked so hard to win?See the full content of this document
Extract
Rise in Income Tax Is Fair Way to Cut Deficit
Yesterday, the Tories hinted at introducing tax breaks for married couples before the next...
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