Married couples are to receive even larger tax breaks if the Conservatives win the next UK election, Prime Minister David Cameron has indicated.
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Brushing off calls to ease the collective tax burden of the UK’s higher earners, Cameron has instead expressed his desire to ease taxes for wedded couples.
Chancellor George Osborne will spell out his plans for finances from April 2015 in his autumn statement, which contains plans to bestow married couples with a deep tax cut worth nearly GBP 150 each year.
This GBP 600 million move has been slammed by campaigners such as Don’t Judge My Family group as “a backward step” for its unfair penalisation of cohabiting couples, single parents and widows.
In addition, the Liberal Democrats are refusing to back the policy, and plan to abstain from the Commons vote.
Under the Chancellor’s proposals, one individual within a married couple or civil partnership (where at least one member is a basic-rate taxpayer), will be able to handover GBP 750 of their tax-free personal allowance to their spouse.
Cameron noted this was “the start of something I would like to see extended further.”
“Always have been, always will be”
Mr Cameron also stated whilst he plans to reduce the basic rate of income tax, he will not further cut the top rate of tax for high earners – which has already been reduced from 50p to 45p.
Specifically, David Cameron has signalled the UK’s middle class earners will probably have to wait until at least 2020 before tax cuts – in spite of the economic recovery.
“I’m a low-tax Tory, I believe in allowing people to keep more of their own money to spend as they choose,” Cameron stated.
“That’s a very important part of my political views, always has been and always will be.”
“But I’m also a fiscal conservative,” he furthered, leading on to his statement that the first duty of a Government was to protect its economy, and that “the economy isn’t safeguarded properly until you deal with your deficit.”
This statement, coupled with current Treasury plans predicting the deficit will not be eradicated until 2018, will lead George Osborne to warn MPs a number of years of austerity are still ahead.
He is expected to state that it is only when the deficit is ended, and public finances are in surplus, that the Conservative Government will begin to cut taxes on the middle class.
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