{"id":13769,"date":"2018-10-30T22:02:17","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T22:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/?p=13769"},"modified":"2018-11-07T14:50:27","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T14:50:27","slug":"why-im-not-taking-hammonds-tax-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/why-im-not-taking-hammonds-tax-cut\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I can&#8217;t take Hammond&#8217;s tax cut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-13770 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/background-21657_1920-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><strong>30 October 2018<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0If you earn \u00a310,000 a year, the 2018 Budget made you \u00a325 better off. If you\u2019re on \u00a315,000, you do a lot better &#8211; you\u2019ll be \u00a3155 richer. But if you make \u00a350,000 then you hit the jackpot. You\u2019ll gain \u00a3520. It adds up to nearly \u00a33 billion of tax cuts, mainly benefiting the rich, in a country where tax-funded services like social care and schools are being savagely cut. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The 2018 Budget was a breath-taking exercise in handing out crumbs to the poor and cakes to the rich. \u00a0And it tells you everything you need to know about the Tory Party\u2019s approach to politics \u2013 bribe low earners with a few eye-catching goodies while saving the big giveaways for your wealthy friends. This is all in a country where:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Spending on adult social care has been cut by one-third since 2010, leaving more than a million needy old people without the support they need;<\/li>\n<li>Almost a quarter of disabled adults are missing meals and a fifth can\u2019t keep their homes warm;<\/li>\n<li>Government funding for local councils has been cut 50% since 2010 and councils are shutting swimming pools, libraries, parks and town halls;<\/li>\n<li>School spending per pupil has fallen 8% since 2010 and schools are cutting staff as well as sport, concerts, plays and trips;<\/li>\n<li>The number of rough sleepers has more than doubled since 2010.<\/li>\n<li>The state pension is lower than in any other industrialised country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The message is clear. The Tories don\u2019t care about ordinary people who rely on public services. They are in business to help people like them &#8211; who use private healthcare and send their children to private schools. If you are lucky enough to have had a supportive family, a good education, qualifications and a career, you\u2019re fine. But if your family was poor, if you struggled at school, if you never understood the system, if you got ill, then God help you.<\/p>\n<p>In the 2018 Budget, we saw a millionaire businessman called Philip Hammond putting this approach into practice. \u00a0His income tax cuts will \u201coverwhelmingly benefit richer households\u201d, according to the Resolution Foundation, with almost half set to go to the top 10% of households, while welfare cuts continue to affect the poorest.<\/p>\n<p>The Budget numbers reveal Tory priorities. Hammond provided \u00a3650m for social care \u2013 but that\u2019s only about a quarter of the \u00a32.8 billion cost of the tax cuts. He provided \u00a3400m for Britain\u2019s cash-starved schools to fund \u2018little extras\u2019 \u2013 unleashing a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/littleextra\">torrent of rage<\/a> from teachers who have seen the loss of teachers, assistants, books and equipment only to be patronised with the comment that \u201cSchool budgets often do not stretch to that extra bit of kit that could make such a difference.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Two final things. If you look at the \u2018effective tax rate\u2019 &#8211; ie what an average taxpayer pays on all income &#8211; you\u2019ll see the British rate is about 13%. That compares with 21% in Australia, 28% in Canada, 30% in Germany and France and 56% in Denmark. \u00a0\u00a0And the Danes are regulars in the top three of the world Happiness Report, along with those other big tax-and-spenders, Finland and Sweden.\u00a0 These countries have got it. They have a consensus that you get what you pay for and they accept high taxes in return for excellent services. Meanwhile we head towards the condition of the world\u2019s LAs and Rios where razor wire protects the gated communities of the rich from the poor masses. (You can see what tax you\u2019d pay in other countries <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uktaxcalculators.co.uk\/world\/tax\/compare\/united-kingdom\/against\/france\/\">here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>Some people are ok with this. It\u2019s all about them. As long as they\u2019re ok, who cares about the rest? I\u2019m not in that camp and I don\u2019t think millions of Brits are either. \u00a0It\u2019s not the spirit that got Britain through two world wars and built our great industries. It\u2019s not the spirit you see when people come together for Children in Need or a local fun run. It\u2019s not the spirit that drives Britain\u2019s sense of community or its sense of humour.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to my education and experience, I\u2019ve been lucky enough to reach the higher tax bracket \u2013 but I\u2019m not taking this tainted money. \u00a3520 works out at \u00a310 a week and I\u2019ll be setting up a standing order to give that tenner to a charity whose work offsets the cuts made by a government which takes from the poor and gives to the rich.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m appalled, if not surprised, at John McDonnell\u2019s failure to oppose the higher rate tax cuts. He says they benefit \u201cmiddle earners, headteachers, people like that\u201d \u2013 who of course include the trade union officials, campaign group leaders and public sector managers who make up Labour\u2019s own group of \u2018people like us\u2019. Yvette Cooper, David Lammy and others are dead right to condemn this. And the LibDems* and SNP shouldn\u2019t be quiet on it either.<\/p>\n<p>Progressive parties need the guts to reject these tax cuts \u2013 even if it alienates me-first voters. We don\u2019t need them. Let them vote Tory and let\u2019s unite the decent majority in favour of a different and better way of doing things. As the US Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said: \u201cI like paying taxes. With them I buy civilisation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>* Update &#8211; 2 November 2018 <\/em><\/strong>The Liberal Democrats have now come out against the higher rate tax cut. On 1 November their MPs voted against it, joined by 20 Labour MPs who rebelled against party orders to abstain.\u00a0 LibDem leader Vince Cable said: &#8220;What is beyond belief<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>is that\u00a0the Labour leadership and the vast majority of their MPs, those who claim to stand\u00a0&#8216;for the many, not the few&#8217;, decided <strong>not<\/strong> to oppose the Government on giving tax cuts to high earners.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>30 October 2018\u00a0 \u00a0If you earn \u00a310,000 a year, the 2018 Budget made [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13770,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13769"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}