Rush Job? Darling Gets His Sums Wrong

Is there a possibility that Alistair Darling may have got his sums wrong?

Bear with me on this.

Increasing the personal allowance by £600 is worth £240 to higher rate taxpayers (marginal rate 40% x £600 = £240). Reducing the higher rate threshold just means that £600 of income is then taxed at an extra 20% (40% - 20%) = £120. Higher rate taxpayers are therefore £120 better off.

The point is that increasing the personal allowance reduces the total of taxable income - which for a higher rate taxpayer is £600 at 40%, not just 20%. Cheers, Alistair!

He should have reduced the 40% threshold by £1,200, not £600.

But hey, I’m just an accountant. Clearly the Chancellor knows better. I mean, he’s in charge of the national treasury.

This entry was posted on 13th May, 2008 at 7:08 pm and is filed under Labour, Tax. Tagged: , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Rush Job? Darling Gets His Sums Wrong”

  1. Magnus10000 Says:
    14th May, 2008 at 12:00 am

    Neil

    You are of course right here - and HMRC has hastily made this clear: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/news/may13.htm

    Proof positive that the Chancellor has a firm grip on tax policy?

    M

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