When Gordon Brown was defending his decision to scrap the 10p tax rate in April 2008, he spoke as if he was avenging a great moral wrong.
“I think I should tell the House that 85 per cent of the benefits of the 10p rate go to higher-rate and basic-rate taxpayers, and that 11 million people, mainly the lowest-income people in the country, receive no benefit at all from it… We are determined to take action, because we are the party of fairness tackling poverty.”
So why did he introduced this 10p tax with such great fanfare in 1999 if it was so regressive? On Sunday 4 May, he told BBC’s Andrew Marr Show:
“Look, nobody’s suggesting the 10p rate be brought back. Not any of the opposition parties, not Frank Field. He knows as I know that it was a transitional measure until we introduced the lower rate income tax and the tax credits.”
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