Gordon Brown's 80 tax rises

Today's Daily Telegraph has performed the great public service of listing Gordon Brown's eighty tax rises:

1997

1. Council tax increased by 6.5pc
2. Mortgage tax relief cut
3. Pensions tax
4. Health insurance taxed
5. Health insurance taxed again
6. Fuel tax escalator up
7. Vehicle excise duty up
8. Tobacco duty escalator up
9. Stamp duty up for properties over £250,000
10. Corporation tax changes
11. New windfall tax on utilities

1998

12. Married couples' allowance cut
13. Tax on travel insurance up
14. Tax on casinos and gaming machines up
15. Fuel tax escalator brought forward
16. Tax on company cars up
17. Tax relief for foreign earnings abolished
18. Tax concession for certain professions abolished
19. Capital gains tax imposed on certain non-residents
20. Reinvestment relief restricted
21. Corporation tax payments brought forward
22 Higher stamp duty rates up
23. Some hydrocarbon duties up
24. Additional diesel duties
25. Landfill tax up
26. Council tax up by 8.6pc

1999

27. NIC earnings limit raised
28. NICs for self-employed up
29. Married couples' allowance abolished
30. Mortgage tax relief abolished
31. IR35: Taxation of personal services companies
32. Company car business mileage allowances restricted
33. Tobacco duty escalator brought forward
34. Insurance premium tax up
35. Vocational training relief abolished
36. Employer NICs extended to all benefits in kind
37. VAT on some banking services up
38. Premiums paid to tenants by landlords taxed
39. Duty on minor oils up
40. Vehicle excise duties for lorries up
41. Landfill tax escalator introduced
42. Higher rates of stamp duty up again
43. Council tax up by 6.8pc

2000

44. Tobacco duties up
45. Higher rates of stamp duty up again
46. Extra taxation of life assurance companies
47. Rules on controlled foreign companies extended
48. Council tax up by 6.1pc

2001

49. Council tax up by 6.4pc

2002

50. Personal allowances frozen
51. National Insurance threshold frozen
52. NICs for employers up
53. NICs for employees up
54. NICs for self-employed up
55. North Sea taxation up
56. Tax on some alcoholic drinks up
57. New stamp duty regime
58. New rules on loan relationships
59. Council tax up by 8.2pc

2003

60. VAT on electronically supplied services
61. IR35 applied to domestic workers
62. Betting duty change
63. Tax on red diesel and fuel oil up
64. Controlled foreign companies measures on Ireland
65. Vehicle excise duty up
66. Council tax up by 12.9pc

2004

67. New 19pc tax rate for owner-managed businesses
68. New tax on private use of company vans
69. UK transfer pricing introduced
70. Increase in rate of tax on trusts
71. Increase in tax on red diesel fuel
72. Increase in tax on other road fuels (including LPG)
73. Council tax up by 5.9pc

2005

74. Cancellation of stamp duty land tax relief for disadvantaged areas.
75. North Sea taxation doubled from 10pc to 20pc.
76. Zero per cent rate of corporation tax abolished
77. Council tax up by 4.1pc

2006

78. Clampdown on trusts and insurance policies commonly used to mitigate inheritance tax.
79. Increase in vehicle excise duty for SUVs.
80. Council tax up by 4.5pc

Comments

[RichardS]

You might have missed one out from this year's Finance Bill - a taxable benefit on "not insignificant" personal use of a work computer.

http://www.shout99.com/contractors/showarticle.pl?id=38540

Whether this is a deliberate inclusion in the finance act or just another badly-worded section in an unneccesarily huge and complex annual act is unknown, but it's something worth pursuing.

If it passes unamended, and is in fact as Berwins claim, then this is surely tax #81.

[Mark Fulford]

Spot the General Election years...

[David Belchamber]

Memo to DC when his time comes; please enact all laws through parliament. GB's stealth taxes are a disgrace. Has he not got the courage to be transparent with the electorate?
The Telegraph is to be congratulated on this article; we need to quote chapter and verse every time we attack Blair and his government.

[Chad]

Yes, but it would endanger economic stability to cut any of these taxes.... :-(

[buxtehude]

Thanks Telegraph for showing us the massive open goal. Now if only our strikers weren't so keen to be doing circles near the corner flag...

Wouldn't it be nice if we were able to say that we would reduce this burden?

[Chad]

Simple, cheap, fair changes:

IHT: Only brings in £3bn pa, a tax on taxed income, very unfair.

Stamp Duty: Should be based on a regional average price instead of a single fixed level as it fails to take into account the sharp regional differences.

Stamp Duty: Should be progressive, rather than the rate for whichever band you hit applying to the full amount. Completely unfair and causes price distortions around the bands.

[Mark Fulford]

Stamp duty has always been perverse. How can any government justify a special-case tax to penalise buyers who move houses more frequently?

[Serf]

How can any government justify a special-case tax to penalise buyers who move houses more frequently?

Because they must be capitalist pigs if they can afford to do so. ;)

[David Belchamber]

Chad @ 10.15. I agree with you on stamp duty and IHT but don't tell Gordon Brown, as those are taxes that he could make fairer.

[Chad]

Hi David,
Once Labour are clearly knee-jerking to conservative ideas it will clearly be the end for them.

Rather than be fearful of Labour stealing policies, I'd like to see a combo of putting forward good "quick kills" that put Labour on the spot where it is lose-lose for them (as they will either be bowing to conservative pressure or rejecting a good idea) combined with the heavy-weight policies that should be held back to later.

For me, it is about setting the agenda as Cameron successfully did in the local elections.

Once they are firmly branded as a conservative proposal, Brown will lose the credit even if he does introduce them.

This death by a thousand cuts could help soften up the opposition more, long before the general election.

[James Hellyer]

IHT: Only brings in £3bn pa, a tax on taxed income, very unfair.

It's not all on taxed income. Appreciation in property and share values in an estate, for example, are not examples of taxed income.

[Chad]

Hi James,
I knew someone would raise that - I would argue that an asset paid from taxed income should not be taxed again.

[Wat Tyler]

When you see them listed out like this, it's surprising that Tax Freedom Day has only moved forward by 10 days. But of course, his own projections say there's another 4-5 days worth in store by the next election.

Wonder which ones he'll go for. A special windfall tax on those that have benfitted most from all the extra government spending? Those overpaid NHS medics perhaps, or the management and IT consultants, or those sovietised regional economies?

Lots of scope.

[Donal Blaney]

There is no point in using whingeing about these tax increases if we lack the courage to campaign overtly to reduce taxes and to reverse these tax increases.

[David Belchamber]

Hi Chad
"Once they are firmly branded as a conservative proposal, Brown will lose the credit even if he does introduce them".
I would like to agree with you on this but I think in practice Blair/Brown will be looking very carefully at any ideas we throw out now.
The proposal to make IHT and stamp duty more equitable as you suggest (which I would like to see), could be cherry picked by Brown in the near future and the electorate will have forgotten that they were our ideas, if the election does not take place for a few more years. Better perhaps to wait until we have a general package of tax reform, of which those two proposals would be part.
I think that George Osborne's statement in today's Telegraph Business section is perfectly acceptable for the time being: "...We are unlikely to make any tax cuts at the next election because economic stability comes first. But over the long term we want to move towards lower taxes...".

[eugene]

...and all these tax rises had had no effect on improving services...so it was all wasted. All we do is pay tax. That is it. Nothing back (except loads of non-jobs handed out to Labour cronies, 18 year old drug/drunken orgy gifts, and 'families'...who should not have kids if they cannot afford them.

[Jill Gunsell]

Policies: not having them, especially this far off a GE, is an electoral Good Thing. Pragmatism is what the country wants, i.e. the prospect of a govt composed of sensible people able to analyse and react to events (dear boy) as circs require. The historical strength of the Tory party is that it's the pragmatic party, not a party of -isms and -ists. The task before us is to appear - and be - the Sensible Party, as opposed to the Policy-itis Mania Party. In which connection:

Conservatism (although in my definition it's hardly an -ism at all) is what the country desperately needs, in the sense of a period of conserving, in contrast to the Blair/Nulab obsession with 'reform', now the moribund Brown's only mantra (for obvious reasons). 'Reform', the only shot in Nulab's locker, is worn out after so much hectic, pointless activity and £££ down the tubes. 'Reform' is driving the electorate at large to bewildered political exhaustion - and NHS employees and teachers to the sick note. And people are sick of their collective memory and values being 'reformed', i.e. rubbished and abolished, by Nulab.

'Conserving' security, (national) identity and independence (i.e. self-government... get us out of the EPP, Dave), our unique constitional settlement, individuals' and national finances, nursing instead of paper-shuffling, real education to facilitate real culture, etc., etc., ... all electorally attractive. 'Conserving' naturally implies some major policy changes to raise standards where appropriate - but only once we are in government and can see the books.

In sum, the Cameroons should continue holding their course/nerve until the GE, simply looking sensible and pragmatic while deploying calculated, ruthless opposition to a govt of which the electorate is visibly tiring, and refuse to rise to the Today programme's goading on 'policies' as far as reasonably possible. This can be done by precise and eloquent demolition jobs as specific opportunities present, a la (la?) David Davies. Not, I regret to say, a la (oh well) George Osborn. (Can't Hague shadow both the ForSec and the Chancellor? Ahem.) With Nulab in its current parlous ha-ha state, demolition opportunities will be legion.

Three years to go. The Murdoch papers are obviously on the turn... Kavanagh's winding up his bowling arm. The Nulab tail, though, includes Johnson and it will take some fancy bowling to get him out. Ming will go - and Cable would up the LibDem vote. Anything can happen.

Steady as she goes. There's plenty of time for the writing of the manifesto, as Dave obviously realises, having given the policy wonks 18 months to think in the back room. I just hope that, when they come blinking into the daylight, they're not mouthing the word 'reform'.

[Jill Gunsell]

http://www.epolitix.com/EN/News/200606/e4f96b25-0fa8-4be6-877e-028640cecc2b.htm

That's the stuff, Dave.

[David Belchamber]

Hi Jill
I agree very much with you, though when you talk about bowlers, please remember that Nulabour has had all the good spinners (until now)!
I agree especially about pragmatism and I have posed the question several times: can DC et al convince us that they can manage the really important things like the NHS? I see the two key posts as being Sec of state for Health and the Chancellor; have we got two first class people to fill those roles?
Nulabour is so vulnerable at the moment on government departments (Home Office, Defra etc) that we must be able to score as an opposition week after week.
In the last tory governemnt the assisted places scheme (which needed some improvements) and grant maintained schools did actually improve things for many pupils (as, in my opinion, would an increase in grammar schools). What about a reversion to something similar as a policy (Nulabour won't copy that)?

[Jill Gunsell]

Like your use of the word 'pupil', David. That's what school children are - or should be. Calling them 'students' is symptomatic of the what's wrong in schools. More of yer actual teaching, less PC.

[comstock]

I like the way you include the fuel duty escalator (which the Tories started and Labour ended)

Also the closing of tax loopholes as 'tax rises'!

[Ted]

Comstock - Labour's 1997 attacks on Tory tax rises were on same basis (stopping allowances = tax rise after all) and they counted each increase in duty as a separate tax increase. Conservatives after all recognise the importance of tradition and once Gordon had set the precedent we can but follow.

[David Belchamber]

Hi Jill
I thought I was in a minority of one by continuing to call school children "pupils". "Students" study, "pupils" are taught in my book. No doubt the really PC will soon be calling them "clients".

[comstock]

Comstock - Labour's 1997 attacks on Tory tax rises were on same basis (stopping allowances = tax rise after all) and they counted each increase in duty as a separate tax increase. Conservatives after all recognise the importance of tradition and once Gordon had set the precedent we can but follow

For once I fear you might have me there!!

Mind you I'm one of those old fashioned types who thinks tax is a good thing.

[Serf]

Mind you I'm one of those old fashioned types who thinks tax is a good thing.

Judging by the fact that paying taxes has been resented even as far back as biblical times, I think "old fashioned" was probably not the right choice of expression.

[comstock]

"realistic" might have been a better one, Serf. Nobody actually likes paying tax, but they *do* like what we get in return, schools, pensions and in particular the NHS.

Anyway the Tories are hardly going to bash GB on tax considering they have promised no tax cuts. People have realised (and even the Conservative party are waking up to) the fact that tax cuts=being bribed with your own money.

[johnC]

The most staggering increase is in Council Tax which has risen by an average of 70% in the last 9 years - far above the rate of inflation in each year. I know that after the Poll Tax fiasco most Conservatives would welcome a debate on local government finance like a fart in a lift, but sooner or later we are going to have to address the problem of making local government more financially accountable.

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[Martin Bristow]

A truly awful list in today's Telegraph.Still however no commitment from Dave to reverse any of it.Instead we are no proposing increased so called green tax.This is on the back of incredibly bad science (see the great global warming swindle) and an elite who think is fashionable and poupular to be green!

I am heratily saddened by this.There is no hope for the hard pressed working families in anything Cameron has uttered so far.

[NotaSheep]

Is there an updated version of this list?

[Gide]

I cannot understand why hardworking people should pay more tax. I think that the simplest thing any government can do is to encourage people to work.

Is it a crime to work very hard? The basic rate system is a killer.