On the day that the Lib Dems tried to smoke out the Tories’ true position on whether they’ll jack-up VAT by 3% – annual cost to the average household, £389 – to pay for their unfunded tax-cuts, David Cameron was joined by a man worth £45m who rather likes the Tories’ promise to cut taxes for the wealthiest at the expense of everyone else.
Full marks to Lib Dem HQ who were smartly on the case to splice the two stories memorably together:
Lib Dem blogger Mark Thompson had his own pithy take on it:
And finally, here’s the Tom Jones VAT bomb (please don’t throw your knickers at the screen):
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7 Comments
This is just going from bad to worse.
Increasing VAT. Exactly what the EU “central planning and taxing” prescription is about. Though some will find it paradoxical, no wonder the EU bureaucracy bets on the Tories.
As far as I am concerned, I’ve come to the conclusion that VAT -a tax system conceived by a French banker, lest you had forgotten- is neither a good nor a fair taxing system, both economically (taxing “value added”, what a silly idea!) and socially (everybody, poor or rich, is penalised).
So i would recommend:
– as a first step, that all EU member states regain control on their VAT rates;
– as a next step, to get back to national (or regional) sale tax schemes. Incidentally, this could help moving towards “grreen taxes” by taxing more heavily some consumer goods.
This brings us far from short-term “Increase VAT to cut deficits” views…
Can I add my own contribution ?
http://norfolkblogger.blogspot.com/2010/04/vat-man-and-vat-man.html
The only slight problem is that this isn’t…erm…Tory policy.
But nevermind
The Tories would never ADMIT in advance that they were going to raise VAT. Remember Thatcher?
Hmmmm. £400 in vat next year is about £2000 total extra spend at current rates… less if vat goes up. With the rapidly rising cost of essential goods and services(food water power fuel) seems a fairly cheap option. Can anyone do better…?
The last Tory government showed us that their instincts are:
– Sell off state assets to cut income tax
– when you run out of state assets, hike up VAT. For the Tories it’s their favourite tax as it hit the poor hardest and they can always say that people on low incomes don’t have to pay VAT if they don’t buy “luxury goods/ services”