Labour conference delegates and Manchester residents will see an interesting sight as they pass the Conference Centre.
With many thanks to Liberal Democrat Kat Dadswell for tweeting the picture, the Voice brings to you:
After Ed Miliband’s “one nation” speech yesterday, the Liberal Democrats fight back with a graphic demonstration of how much income tax has been cut for those earning the minimum wage. Struggling low paid workers handed £1018 to Alistair Darling in 2010. Their tax bill will be just £573 in 2013.
This is part of the Fairer Tax campaign which you can join here.
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17 Comments
That’s great but what about VAT? The rise to 20% is estimated to put an average £425 p.a extra onto tax bills. Add that to the £573 Income tax and things don’t look so good. Low paid people buy stuff too you know!
Stephen, the VAT rise increases prices by around 4%. If you’re paying £425 a year extra in VAT, then you’re spending around £9,800 a year on VAT-rated items. And if you can afford that, I doubt you’re benefiting from the income tax cut which doesn’t apply to high earners anyway!
It’s not my picture lol!
It’s credited on twitter as from a Labour activist – @sean_k_91.
How did you get to 4% Dave? I make a price rise from 117.5 to 120 a 2.1% increase.
Looking at the income tax cut and the VAT rise together: Fred the full time minimum wage worker will be worse off overall if he spends £445 more in VAT, thus wiping out his income gain. To spend this much extra in VAT, his total spend on VAT-able purchases would need to be £21,635.48, i.e. far higher than his income. If this is the case, I would suggest Fred has bigger financial problems than the tax system.
Hard-working low paid people clearly benefit from our overall tax package.
Out of interest, what is the carbon footprint of producing this poster and then driving a lorry round Manchester all day?
The carbon footprint will be miniscule compared to holding a conference in the first place.
@Duncan Stott
Don’t non-hardworking low paid people also benefit?
Why not show the other poster that was doing the rounds today? Appallingly bad!
Also, for the poster above should you not include the Tories in that – you cannot pick and choose which policies you promote and those you don’t?
Secondly, it is not as black and white as you make out either
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/economics-blog/2012/mar/09/budget-2012-personal-tax-allowance-unfair
@bazzasc Ah yes the old “you can’t pick and choose which policies you promote” argument. That’s why Labour campaign on how proud they are that they invaded Iraq…. Oh wait….
Duncan Stott: “Hard-working low paid people clearly benefit from our overall tax package.”
No they don’t. The government’s own budget reports show that every income decile is worse off – and the lower income deciles are actually doing worse than most of those higher up. See the charts on page 91 here :-
http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/budget2012_complete.pdf
There’s no getting away from the fact that the Lib Dems are being extremely dishonest about tax.
@Kat
Well you are picking and choosing aren’t you……?
Labour were a disgrace on Iraq (as the Tories were as well) and the LD were the only ones to hold the moral high ground. Unfortunately I fail to see how that is relevant to the ‘picking and choosing’ point I was making and also the point on tax.
If voters still do not want to vote Labour because of Iraq then they are free to do so. I wish you luck in basing your next GE campaign on Iraq though
Lets not forget the 20% to 30% cuts Council Tax benefit coming soon that Local Government are now forced to implement because of the Coalition reduction in support.
It kinda makes a mockery of the claim that income tax has been cut for those earning the minimum wage making them better off in the long run….
Given with one hand, taken by the other.
Interesting reading compared to Stephen Tall’s recent post quoting Jonathan Portes on how irrelevant it is to single out income tax when talking about overall fairness.
@ Aaron 3rd Oct ’12 – 8:49pm
“Interesting reading compared to Stephen Tall’s recent post quoting Jonathan Portes on how irrelevant it is to single out income tax when talking about overall fairness.”
So on balance when all is said and done the Lib Dem ‘flagship’ claim that they have helped the lowest paid workers is nonsense…. am I correct in that assessment?
That benefit is only if the minimum wage worker is employed full time – which applies to only 20% of minimum wage employees. The average gain is going to be far smaller (and isn’t there a offset from reduced tax credits?)
Good message. Poor graphics.