Labour should think twice before taxing pensioners

Labour, according to Rachel Reeves, is now the party of low taxes. She has said she won’t raise income tax, National Insurance, capital gains tax and corporation tax, as well as ruling out a wealth tax. But that still leaves a few options for jacking up taxes, as one of Reeves’ advisers, Sir Edward Troup has hinted. Last week, Troup, a former head of HMRC, was appointed by Reeves to look at efforts to reduce tax avoidance. This is a slightly ill-timed initiative given that Labour is simultaneously trying to play down the case of a particular taxpayer who stands accused of failing to pay capital gains tax on a former council house she bought and then sold on at a profit (she denies any wrongdoing).

But it is a speech which Troup made in 2019 which is capturing attention – one in which he accused ‘codgers’ like himself of being an ‘under-taxed generation’ who had had it ‘ridiculously good’.