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Ed Balls launches “Tory Millionaire’s Day” campaign – and outlines some of what Labour’s alternative budget would do

February 26, 2013 1:04 pm

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As we told you yesterday, Labour are launching a campaign against Osborne’s decision to implement a real terms cut to tax credits whilst on the same day cutting tax for millionaires. Launching the campaign – called “Tory Millionaire’s Day” in an email to Labour supporterss this afternoon, Ed Balls will outline the following as policies which Labour would implement if he were delivering the budget:

  • cancel the tax cut for millionaires and the raid on tax credits for working families;
  • bring back a lower 10p starting rate of tax to give 25 million people on middle and low incomes a tax cut, paid for by a mansion tax on houses over £2 million;
  • and take action to kick-start this flatling economy by bringing forward infrastructure investment, building thousands of affordable homes and boosting lending to small businesses.  

The graphic for the campaign – which will appear on leaflets, direct mails and online ads – sticks to the repeated party line that Osborne and Cameron are “writing a cheque” to millionaires. Here it is:

cheque-web_01_WEB

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  • externalities

    How much will “millionaires” gain from reintroducing the unnecessary 10p rate? Just as much as those on “middle and low incomes”.

    How much will someone earning £9,000 get? Nothing.

  • Hamish Dewar

    I guess most people can work out that a tax cut of 5% on £1 million doesn’t equate to £100,000.. Presumably the latter figure (100,000) is based on the average income of those earning 1 million plus being at least twice that. But it somewhat blunts the point of this part of the message.

    I would like to see Labour going further than the 10% tax rate by supporting totally progressive tax rates. An easily stated and memorable progression would be 1% on income from 1k to 2k, 2% on income from 2k to 3k, and so on to the point of diminishing returns, which would be close to 100% in my view. This policy could be contrasted with the coalition slogan of removing people from the tax net altogether, which is patronising and divisive (tax payers v. non tax-payers).
    It goes without saying that fully progressive rates require full computerisation of the process of collecting tax. There are many ways this could be implemented, from: all income is paid to the state and the state passes on the net income to the individual; to: all income is paid to the individual and the individual uses a certified algorithm to pass on the due tax to the state. In the old days, banks could have been expected to provide this service.

  • AlanGiles

    Yet another amazing piece of cheek. I am no friend of the Tories, but “Tory Millionaires Day”. Are they different to Labour millionaires some of whom sit in the shadow cabinet?.
    Last year it was Greggs, to prove how “one of us” he is. Now it’s this. It’s all…, well….Balls

  • Dave Postles

    What’s the point? You want to spend the income on Trident?

    ‘Labour will fight the next general election on a pledge to retain
    Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent, senior party sources have said.

    Although some advisers to Ed Miliband want him to opt for a
    scaled-down, cheaper alternative to the current Trident system, there
    are growing signs that Labour will join the Conservatives in backing a
    £25billion “like-for-like” replacement.’

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-to-join-tories-in-backing-a-25bn-deal-to-renew-trident-fleet-8512209.html

    You expect us to come back with this rot?

  • Karl Hungus

    What I think may exercise voters in this debate is the Tories excuse for cutting the tax rate: the rich just aren’t up for paying high taxes, and there’s nothing the Government is willing to do about it.

    Us plebs get treated like errant schoolkids in any of our interactions with the state… (filling a tax return incorrectly; speeding fines; the way you get spoken to sometimes, at a GP appointment, or the jobcentre).

    By contrast, if you’ve got money, Government bends over backwards for you, as with this tax rate.

    It’s a commonly-felt perception, and I feel that Labour could tap into the popular mood on this issue

    • Dave Postles

      I agree entirely. When my brother was signed off as ill, he had to complete a 17-page form with 3 pages of introduction to claim his ESA (Form ESA50). The form was replete with notes about sanctions. He was told that no cancellations or amendments are allowed on the form. In addition, I had to pay a not inconsiderable amount for the GP to provide a supporting letter. I spent four hours reading background information to the form, downloading a copy, making provisional entries, and then two hours with him completing the form. He was traumatized by it. He had just been discharged from hospital after an attempted suicide. Is this really the way to treat ill people?

      • AlanGiles

        No it isn’t and it is what really angers me. Yesterday Mark’s piece on welfare, for example, where he castigated the WCA component. Quite rightly so – but he failed to acknowledge it was ex “Labour” minister Purnell who introduced it.

        I remember about 6 years ago helping a man, who had moderate learning difficulties, who had got into trouble with the DWP basically because he had misunderstood part of the form he had submitted (pre ESA) – or more correctly had been persuaded to sign it without being fully informed of what he was signing) and it was only after two lengthy and hostile interviews with the DWP (I was present at one of them) they dropped their threat of prosecution. It is cases like that which make me continue to highlight the disgusting and deliberate expenses frauds.

        A LL poster told me blithely yesterday that the scandal was now “done and dusted”. I am sure none of us believe all the old lags have gone straight, and if they do get caught out again, they will be dealt with as leniently as this unfortunate man was harshly.

        I hope whatever your brother’s troubles are, he recovers.

  • Timmo111

    I hope labour millionaires such as the Millibands send their hundred grand cheques back to the treasury or they could donate them charity.

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