Rumoured jobs tax would make this government the highest-taxing in five decades
Responding to yet more rumours of a hypothecated 'NHS tax' by increasing national insurance, Alex Wild, Research Director at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said:
“For all the government’s spin about cutting taxes, they’ve quietly been ramping them up to levels that Gordon Brown could only dream of. It’s no wonder growth is so weak when work and investment are punished so heavily by the taxman.
"Earmarking taxes for specific budgets is either smoke and mirrors or dreadful policy depending on how it’s done. A proportion of national insurance contributions are already allocated to the NHS and the government knows full well that this makes absolutely no difference to the size of the NHS budget. It may as well allocate a percentage of fuel duty to the police.
"If the earmarking was more rigid, the NHS budget would be hostage to receipts from a single stream of tax revenue which is more volatile than the overall tax take. This will either leave the health service with less than it budgeted for, or with a surplus of cash that could be better spent elsewhere on things like defence or education.
"A few years ago the Conservatives argued that a jobs tax would increase unemployment and depress wages. Unfortunately they seem to have forgotten this most basic truth."
•Increasing employees' or employer's national insurance would increase the tax burden to 34.5 per cent of GDP.
•Philip Hammond is set to become the highest taxing chancellor since Roy Jenkins in 1969-70.
•If in post until 2021, Hammond will have presided over Britain’s second, third and fourth highest tax years in seven decades.
The Conservatives used to be against national insurance increases, labeling them a 'jobs tax'. In 2010, then shadow chancellor George Osborne said:
"Labour have confirmed today that they are going ahead with a national insurance tax rise on jobs that Britain's business leaders say will endanger jobs. Labour's jobs tax and debt will stamp out the green shoots and kill the recovery. Conservative plans to cut wasteful government spending and stop the jobs tax will get Britain working."
Source:Taxpayers' Alliance
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