Tag Archives: wealth taxes

£18,000 Education Pot – a good idea?

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 9th November 2017 - 5:28 pm

The papers today have been full of Vince Cable’s proposal that all 16-year olds should have access to an £18,000 endowment for education.

Here is an extract from The Sun:

Teenagers should get £18,000 to spend on further education to re-balance inequality between the generations, Sir Vince Cable has said.

The Lib Dem leader today unveiled his plans for an “endowment fund” which would be used for young people to spend throughout their lives.

And from the Daily Telegraph:

A new wealth tax could extract some of the housing value owned by older Brits, which Cable wants to use to give all 18-year olds

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The Voice

“What I need is what I think the Liberal Democrats are proposing” says Labour’s Peter Mandelson on Mansion Tax

By The Voice | Tue 20th January 2015 - 10:31 am

Well, well. Who would have thought Peter Mandelson of all people would back a Liberal Democrat policy over a Labour one?

The Guardian has the story:

Speaking on Newsnight on BBC2, Mandelson said he favoured finding new ways of taxing property in Britain. But he added: “I don’t happen to think that the mansion tax is the right policy response to that. I think it’s sort of crude, it’s sort of short-termist.

“What we need is what I think the Liberal Democrats are proposing and that is the introduction of further bands that relate to different values of property within the council tax system. That’s what I would like to see. It will take longer to introduce, that’s true, but it will be more effective and efficient in the longer term than simply clobbering people with a rather sort of crude short term mansion tax.”

Mandelson is the latest senior Labour figure to criticise the party’s plan to impose a tax on properties worth more than £2m to help raise £1.2bn towards the £2.5bn costs of a new “Time to Care” NHS fund. This is designed to support 20,000 more nurses, 8,000 more GPs and 5,000 more care workers by 2020.

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Stephen Tall

Higher-rate tax and Danny Alexander’s time-limited dead body

By Stephen Tall | Wed 5th February 2014 - 8:30 pm

This was the couldn’t-be-clearer headline in the Mirror today, atop an interview with Lib Dem chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander:

danny alexander mirror headline

Defiant Danny Alexander today opened up a fresh rift within the Coalition Government by vowing to block Tory plans for yet another tax cut for the rich. … His comments will enrage Conservative MPs who are pushing to slash the rate from 45p ahead of next year’s General Election. It comes just days after David Cameron refused, on three occasions, to rule out cutting tax. But

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Geoff Crocker

Opinion: Why Wealth Can’t be Taxed (except very occasionally)

By Geoff Crocker | Thu 13th December 2012 - 9:24 am

Wealth tax is becoming, or has become?, a core Lib Dem policy. Nick Clegg shakes his head alongside his Cabinet colleague the Chancellor of the Exchequer announcing that the coalition government will not introduce a mansion tax. Vince Cable is back on the World at One the next day defending it.

There has been much discussion as to whether wealth and mansion taxes are fair. But fairness is a very subjective concept. Some think that wealth taxes appropriately ask the rich to shoulder relatively more of the financial burden imposed if we needlessly insist on the financial orthodoxy that the …

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Stephen Tall

LibLink: Jonathan Portes on wealth taxes & ensuring the ‘rich’ pay their fair share

By Stephen Tall | Tue 2nd October 2012 - 8:25 pm

Jonathan Portes, director of NIESR and former senior Treasury official, is not a Lib Dem — he recently contributed to LibDemVoice to critique the Coalition’s economic policy — but he is addicted to robust evidence. And the recent spate of right-wing commentators rubbishing the Lib Dems’ call for increased wealth taxes to help tackle the current economic crisis has roused his ire:

The Liberal Democrats call for a “mansion tax” (that is, a higher rate of council tax for the most expensive properties), possibly supplemented by some form of wealth tax seems to have provoked a peculiarly illogical misuse of

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Mark Pack

Cable: no to regional pay; Clegg: yes to taxes on wealth; Alexander: tougher tax rules

By Mark Pack | Sun 23rd September 2012 - 12:45 pm

News snippets from today:

Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, the Liberal Democrat leader ruled out the possibility of the Government filling the gap in public finances through cuts to the welfare budget – something reportedly being mooted on the Conservative benches.

He said the Government would “start at the top and work down”, and was optimistic about his chances of persuading his Conservative colleagues to agree to a so-called ‘wealth tax’.

 

Cable said that introducing regional pay was “completely unacceptable” and “terrible economics”. He said that although the Lib Dems were prepared to contemplate a measure of public sector pay

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Posted in Conference and News | Also tagged , , , , and | 3 Comments
Prateek Buch

Wealth taxation is now firmly on the government’s radar

By Prateek Buch | Fri 24th February 2012 - 12:09 pm

As part of the long-standing Liberal Democrat commitment to fair taxation, expressed so clearly by David Laws, the party has often called for a greater emphasis on wealth taxes.

As a direct result of these calls, it is now clear that the government is considering some form of wealth taxation to help deliver another long-standing Lib Dem tax policy – giving millions of low- and middle-earners a welcome boost by raising the income tax threshold to £10,000.

The precise nature of increased taxation on wealth is a topic of much discussion. Radio 4’s Today programme carried an interesting discussion of …

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Stephen Tall

90% of Lib Dem members back 50p tax for highest earners & 73% increased taxes for wealthiest

By Stephen Tall | Mon 13th February 2012 - 7:45 am

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 570 party members responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

90% of Lib Dem members back principle of 50p rate

LDV asked: In 2009 a new top rate of income tax of 50p in the pound was introduced for earnings over £150,000. Previously the top rate of income tax had been 40p in the pound. At what income level do you think the Coalition Government should set the 50p top rate of income tax?

    2%

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged | 13 Comments
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