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Taxing problems
• I SEE my MP Frank Dobson gave fulsome thanks to the chancellor for this week’s so-called tax giveaway – he still seems touchingly gullible when listening to his own front bench.
He thanked Alistair Darling for targeting that money on the “worst off families and individuals” and claimed: “Putting money in their pockets and handbags is fairer than anything anyone else has suggested”.
Frankly that is rubbish, and I write as one who, though far from being among the worst off, will be receiving a £60 pensioner’s handout in January.
I agree with Mr Dobson that assisting the most needy would have been the right way to go, but a temporary 2.5 per cent cut in VAT is neither closely targeted (only half the deduction, by the Treasury’s own estimate, will reach consumers, and from that the rich will benefit more than the poor), nor fair or effective (because the full rate will be reinstated later).
In fact just before Mr Dobson rose to speak, Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats’ spokesman, had pointed out that the government had once again failed to make the tax system permanently fairer which could have been done by cutting income taxes permanently for those on low and middle incomes, paid for by getting rid of tax loopholes for the wealthy.
The worst off families and individuals, of whom many live in deprived areas of Camden, should not be deceived into thinking enough has been done to help them.
It hasn’t.
Robin Young
Bedford Avenue, WC1 |
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