The Telegraph’s excellent Tories in Power series continues today with a splendid piece by Tim Montgomerie. Tim argues that:
“The Tories’ next moral target should be the taxation of low-income workers. Income tax is taken from many poor families, churned through an expensive bureaucracy and then returned in benefits.
It would cost £44 billion to take approximately 14,000,000 people out of the tax system altogether. The Conservative government doesn’t have to set a timetable, but it would be the greatest of missions; as radical and just as Margaret Thatcher’s sale of council homes. It would sow panic in Labour’s heartlands.
The difference between freezing public spending and growing public spending at the same rate as Labour is £12 billion a year. Conservatives could complete the mission within one parliament if they froze spending – after inflation.
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