It’s been an eventful week to say the least with a budget like we’ve never seen before. There’s no doubt that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are trying to appease the left of the party with tax hikes for what they call “the rich” but as usual their plans are naive and ill thought out. They are in fact doing untold damage by targeting the people who can get us out of this recession. Entrepreneurs are a vital part of our economy and the negative impact of this budget has not yet emerged.
What the Government has done, will in my view raise less revenue than expected, and is just a gesture to punish those earning at the top end – it’s a political move by a Chancellor and a Prime Minister who are putting the interests of Government ahead of the public.
The fact they have have gone for pensions – again, is unforgivable. In the small print, and initially unnoticed are plans to tax anyone earning more than £150,000 on payments their employers make into their company pension schemes. This sets a precedent in the taxation of pension schemes and we should all be very worried regardless of what we earn.
It’s very easy to say well they can afford it if they are earning 150k – this is not the point. This government have already raided our pension schemes, and this further raid is simply a d isgrace, who knows where it will stop. With the state of public finances and the total absence of any plan to control public spending and restructure the state, we are simply on a crash course.
Would you buy anything from Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling? Well who’s going to buy the £220 billion of bonds they need to sell in order to even begin paying back this gargantuan debt they have saddled every one of us with?