50p Immorality

Yesterday Ed Balls, who hasn't said anything for a month despite being second in command of Labour, declared that he wanted to bring back the 50p tax rate. Oh dear, when will these people learn.

Firstly let's examine what Ed Balls said:

"When the deficit is still high, when tough times are now set to last well into the next parliament, when for ordinary families their real incomes are falling and taxes have risen, it cannot be right for David Cameron and George Osborne to have chosen to give the richest people in the country a huge tax cut. That's why, for the next parliament, the next Labour government will reverse this government's top rate tax cut so we can finish the job of getting the deficit down and do it fairly. For the next parliament, we will restore the 50p top rate ... reversing this unfair tax cut for the richest 1% of people in the country."

I'd choose Osborne over Balls any day.

Essentially Ed Balls is making a moral statement. He could have said instead "how dare the rich people not contribute more as a percentage in tax. Its their fault for the recession and we want to make them pay. Its not fair for the everyone else". 

The Conservatives brought in the 45p tax rate and now the rich pay more.

There is one killer argument for why it was right for the Conservatives to cut the 50p tax rate. At 45p the rich may be taxed less as a % but the top 1% now pay more money into the treasury. The 50p tax rate raised either a negligible or no money for the Government to spend (we're not exactly sure because if money did come in the amount was too small to notice and record). The Governments policy of cutting the 50p rate to 45p has brought in £1.5 billion in the first month on top of the tiny amount of money that was/wasn't made under a 50p tax rate. In theory the 45p tax rate should at least bring in £18 billion a year to be spent on the public. This figure is much more than the most outlandish predictions of revenues for the 50p tax rate of £3 billion per year when introduced by Alistair Darling in 2010.

This means Ed Balls only one thing. Ed Balls is an immoral man. He is saying to the British People, despite the money raised in this tax cut coming in a free market fashion which boosts business, jobs and living standards, that people should receive a cut in vital services such as health and education to pay for a 'fairer' tax system. I don't know about you but what is not fair is cutting services when you do not have to. Ed Balls is immorally saying to the poorest bare more of the burden, pay more tax and we'll in the mean time moan at the rich for not doing enough. I don't think that is fair. It is immoral, but then that's the Labour Party for you.

Ed Balls learnt from one of the best when it comes to immorality, remember Labour scrapped the 10p tax rate.

I think this argument is the best at countering opposition to a 45p tax rate. Leave alone how its creates more jobs, allows for wages to rise and brings more intellectuals and ideas to Britain. The killer point is that Ed Balls is really saying to the poorest in society you should have less money so we can pretend to be morally outraged. Ed Balls, Red Ed and the rest of the Labour Party are morally vacuous.