All posts tagged: abolishing

Abolishing non-dom tax status would be humiliation for Tories, says Phillipson | Budget 2024 (spring)

Abolishing non-dom tax status would be humiliation for Tories, says Phillipson | Budget 2024 (spring)

It would be an “abject humiliation” for the Tories if they implemented Labour’s policy of abolishing non-dom status, the shadow cabinet minister Bridget Phillipson has said. The abolition of the status, which gives generous tax breaks to some of the UK’s richest residents, has long been one of Labour’s headline policies, but the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is understood to be considering announcing a similar move in this week’s budget. During an interview on Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, Phillipson said: “If they were to do that [abolish non-dom status] it would be an abject humiliation, because Conservative cabinet ministers have spent years rubbishing this idea. “If they were to do it it would just demonstrate that it is Labour who are leading the charge when it comes to the battle of ideas in this country.” Non-dom status allows foreign nationals who live in the UK, but are officially domiciled overseas, to avoid paying UK tax on their overseas income or capital gains. Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, has previously enjoyed non-domiciled status. Bridget …

The Observer view on abolishing inheritance tax: a handout to the wealthy | Observer editorial

The Observer view on abolishing inheritance tax: a handout to the wealthy | Observer editorial

Britain’s public finances are in a “parlous state”, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. More than a decade of public spending cuts has ripped the welfare safety net and left the NHS and other public services more stretched than ever, while it is costing increasingly more to service the country’s high and rising debt burden. Yet speculation increased last week that the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, may be considering the abolition of inheritance tax in his spring budget in March. This would be a pre-election giveaway for some of the country’s wealthiest families that the UK can ill afford. There is a conundrum at the heart of inheritance tax that makes it an appealing prospect to some Conservatives ahead of an election. It is paid by a relatively small number of people; currently, only the wealthiest 5% at death. Yet it is unpopular; voters see it as the least fair tax in the UK. While scrapping it would leave a £7bn hole in the budget today, rising to an estimated £15bn a year by the …

Case for abolishing two-child benefit cap ‘overwhelming’, says report – UK politics live | Politics

Good morning. MPs have got four more days sitting in the Commons before the summer recess starts, but it is not really the moment for Rishi Sunak to start winding down. There are byelections in three Conservative-held seats on Thursday – Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Nigel Adams’ Selby and Ainsty, and David Warburton’s Somerton and Frome – and Tories fear they will lose them all, even though in the latter two the majorities in 2019 were around 20,000. If this does happen, Sunak will be the first PM to lose three byelections in one day since Harold Wilson in 1968 (12 years before Sunak was even born). We got a preview of one possible Tory line to take in the event of a triple drubbing from the Conservative MP Steve Brine on the Westminster Hour last night. Asked about the possibility of defeat in Uxbridge, he said: “It’s another bit of what I call ‘long Boris’, isn’t it?” Long Boris might also part-explain a defeat in Selby, where the byelection is only happening …