Friday 1 July 2022 01:36 AM DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Picking the pockets of the middle classes trends now
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When the 40p tax band was introduced in 1988, it was intended to affect only the top 5 per cent of earners.
But after years of threshold freezes, it has morphed from a tax on the well-off into a blunt fiscal instrument for the Treasury to thump middle-income households.
In that first year, the 40p rate was levied on just 1.35million people.
Rishi Sunak claims to be a low-tax Chancellor. Yet he is stealthily picking the pockets of bedrock Tory voters
By the end of 2022, a staggering 6.1million will be paying it. By 2024, it will be seven million – NHS staff, teachers, police officers and tradesmen among them.
And this is under a Tory government!
Rishi Sunak claims to be a low-tax Chancellor. Yet he is stealthily picking the pockets of bedrock Tory voters – while simultaneously hitting them with a stinging national insurance rise.
In this cost of living crunch, struggling families can’t get by on his promises of jam tomorrow. They need concerted action to ease their burden now.
That means cutting taxes, raising thresholds, and allowing people to keep more of their own money.
Forthcoming corporation tax hikes should also be shelved, to give business a chance to recover from its Covid travails.
This Government is at a crossroads. If it reverts to basic Tory principles, it can still overcome its difficulties and go on to win the next election.
If it just keeps muddling along and hoping the economy will heal itself, a long
