Lib Dem Treasury Spokesperson Vince Cable: A Socialist
Y'know, it sometimes surprises me that Vince Cable ever worked for Shell. Surely that multinational capitalist enterprise must have noticed that they were employing a typical and tedious Socialist as an Economist?
Anyhoo, Mr Cable's latest wheeze is to slap another tax on those who happen to own an expensive house:
The new charge of 0.5% would apply to the value of a property above £1m. So if a home was worth £1.5m the 0.5% tax would apply to £500,000 of it, meaning the owner will have to pay £2,500 a year. The extra tax on a £4m property would be £15,000 a year.Well, that's further limited the number of people willing to vote Lib Dem. Besides, weren't the Liberal Democrats talking about savage spending cuts just a couple of days ago? I guess Vince must have just got excited, and found the old social democrat in him was just unable to pass up the chance to whack the prosperous with yet another penalty for the heinous crime of being, well, prosperous...
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 8:15 pm
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Christ, not you as well.
It is absolutely staggering, the government says it will increase VAT back to 17.5%, costing businesses and consumers a total of £10 billion or whatever, increasing prices and hurting businesses and jobs, and nobody says a thing, not the Tories, not the Lib Dems, nobody.
He suggests recapturing a teensy tiny bit of massive hitherto tax-free totally unearned capital gains and all of a sudden he's a socialist.
Sure, most of the other Lib Dem tax policies are shit and they are far too timid on spending cuts, but why do you all obsess with this tax? Poor people in small houses pay considerably more than one per cent property value tax every year - it's called Council Tax.
Ack! This is politicking, not economising. The amounts involved aren't exactly crippling. LDs want to steal as many votes from Labour as they can. What better way than to portray themselves as the party that will tax the rich?
Mark,
I'm not obsessing over this tax (and I'm not sure who you are lumping me with here) anymore than I obsess over any other tax rise. And you're right - this increase is far less important than a rise in VAT. Not least because it is coming from the third party, who are never going to achieve political power in this country.
What is interesting though is the tone of this proposed tax increase. As Edgar points out, it is politicking pure and simple. Yet Cable is indulging in the political tactics of a minister in the Callaghan government, rather than a senior figure in the new Liberal "Savage Cuts" Democrats. I find it interesting - and very revealing of the true nature of Mr Cable.
TNL
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