David Binder: Introducing transferable allowances for married couples would be more progressive than taking people out of tax

David Binder works for CARE (Christian Action and Research and Education). You can follow him on Twitter here.

Since Nick Clegg gave his recent speech about raising the threshold for paying income tax there has been heated and highly publicised political and social debate about how best to help poor families in the UK - culminating which in last week's Commons vote on the benefits cap.

The Deputy Prime Minister has for many months spoken of his firm commitment to what he called the "fundamental need for reform" of the UK tax system, and the "rebalancing" that he says needs to take place.
This intervention won him praise from within his own party and indeed from many both within the Conservative Party and outside it, including among economic commentators who share his concerns about the oppressive nature of the current tax regime and its failure to put work at its heart.

We all remember the outrage caused by David Cameron when he revealed that the current welfare system greets many people going into low paid work from benefits with a marginal tax rate of up to 96 per cent. He called this a "huge disincentive to work"- and endorsed plans to tackle a benefits system that was acutely trapping people on benefits.  It is in this context that we should see Clegg's good intentions.  But while his  rhetoric might sound encouraging, the proposed policy solution fails to address the problems with our current tax system.