Tag Archives: marriage tax break

Stephen Tall

Marriage tax breaks: Lib Dem members oppose Conservative plans by 62% to 22%

By Stephen Tall | Sun 26th January 2014 - 3:44 pm

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 750 party members responded – thank you – and we’ve been publishing the full results.

(There were a couple of results I ran out of time to publish during the Christmas holiday period – I’ll be publishing them this week.)

Lib Dems oppose married couple tax-breaks by 62% to 22%

The tax break for married couples and civil partners was a Conservative election pledge that has lain dormant during Coalition. Not because of Lib …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged , , and | 2 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Danny Alexander earns a reprieve after strong performance on Andrew Marr

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 8th December 2013 - 10:57 am

Danny Alexander went on the Andrew Marr Show this morning to talk about the Autumn Statement and the Liberal Democrats’ contribution to the economic recovery.  If I had to pull him up on anything, it’s not getting in any mention of shared parental leave. No Liberal Democrat interview should be complete without it. It ticks all the stronger economy, fairer society, enabling people to get on in life boxes and is one of the best practical demonstrations of  Liberal Democrat values in action that we’ve delivered in government.

He said that the proposed MPs’ pay rise would be wholly inappropriate when there’s pay restraint in other areas of the public sector.

In terms of differentiation from the Tories, he said that Liberal Democrats wanted more taxes on the wealthy, opposed what he called the tax penalty for unmarried people and opposed the removal of housing benefit from young people, which we had stopped in this Parliament.

He also confirmed that free school meals for younger children was a permanent commitment and reports that it was unfunded after 2015 were not true. He said the money was there but the work had not yet been done to allocate them to individual departments.

I’ve done a quick Storify which covers the main points of the interview.

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 26 Comments
Jenny Allen

The Independent View: Help, don’t judge – better uses for the £700 million marriage tax break cash

By Jenny Allen | Wed 4th December 2013 - 11:58 am

Don't judge advent calendarAnother Westminster set piece, another piece of the jigsaw for David Cameron’s marriage tax allowance. This Thursday the Chancellor gives his Autumn Statement. With the economic upturn shaky at best we can expect little in the way of good news and plenty more squeezing of budgets. Except, that is, for the little matter of the £700m the Conservatives are gearing up to spend on giving tax breaks for married couples. The Chancellor is expected to give more detail on this policy, which even its supporters believe is only of symbolic value.

With …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged and | 7 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Liberal Democrat MPs may be bound by the Coalition Agreement, but that shouldn’t stop us campaigning against judgemental Tory marriage tax break

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 28th September 2013 - 8:40 am

Wedding ringsWay back in May 2010, I divided the Coalition Agreement into The Good, The Meh and the “Bring me the gin now.” What do you think the very first item on the “lock me in a cupboard with a bottle of gin when they vote on this list” was?

“We also agree that provision will be made for Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain on budget resolutions to introduce transferable tax allowances for married couples without prejudice to this coalition agreement.”

Ok, it’s tokenistic but the principle is so plain wrong that

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 40 Comments
Caron Lindsay

IFS say marriage tax break is symbolic and of little benefit to children.

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 25th July 2013 - 3:45 pm

Liberal Democrats generally don’t need to be persuaded that the Tories’ marriage tax break idea, on which they’d like to blow half a billion quid, is an ineffective and entirely wrong-headed idea.

However it’s always useful to have more ammunition against it. The Telegraph reports that the Institute of Fiscal Studies take the view that education and wealth of parents is far more significant to children than whether their parents are married:

Research shows that children whose parents are married make better progress at school and are more emotionally stable than those whose parents co-habit.

However, the IFS has found that this

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 5 Comments
Evan Harris

Evan Harris writes… Speak out against the marriage tax allowance

By Evan Harris | Mon 1st July 2013 - 1:10 pm

David Cameron has finally given in to his backbenchers and promised to introduce a tax break for married couples in the next few weeks. Even David Cameron does not really support the policy. As Iain Dale put it in a blog last week “David Cameron and George Osborne keep paying lip service to this idea in the vain hope that it will keep Peter Bone and Mrs Bone happy if somewhere at the end of the rainbow this promise is ever introduced, but the truth of the matter is that neither Prime Minister or Chancellor gives a monkey’s cuss …

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Posted in Op-eds | 34 Comments
Caron Lindsay

The “affair” is none of our business – but how did it get in the papers anyway?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 2nd June 2013 - 9:45 am

Today’s Daily Mail carries a story of a love affair which, apparently, has shocked David Cameron so much and got Downing Street panicking to the extent that they are worried about his political agenda being derailed.

From the story, which has no names or much in the way of detail, we can deduce that two middle aged people had an affair which is now over and which caused distress to others. No current cabinet ministers are involved and, from what I can gather, no Liberal Democrats either.

When you get down to it, it seems that the Mail has published a story …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 54 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Tory marriage tax break back on the table, says Cameron

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 27th April 2013 - 11:20 am

From the Telegraph:

The Prime Minister categorically said he will recognise marriage in the UK tax system within the next two years after receiving heavy criticism for his failure to assist traditional British families.

Speaking in Carlisle, where he was answering questions from workers at a Pirelli factory, Mr Cameron piled pressure on the Liberal Democrats to allow the policy to pass through Parliament.

Asked whether he still has plans to recognise marriage in the tax system the Prime Minister said: “Yes I do, we set them out at the last election in the Conservative manifesto. The Coalition agreement specifically said that

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 38 Comments
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