Politics – General Election 2015 Tory Tax Promises

Tory Tax promises – Too Good to be true? You Bet!

Dave Cameron has said that he would pass a law to say that it is illegal to raise Income Tax, National Insurance, or VAT for the next 5 years. The Tory party would pass that law within the first 100 days of a Tory majority government. That sounds great, but. Last election he said that he had no plans to raise VAT, guess what he did as soon as his feet were under the desk? Raise VAT.

But a law, that sounds like a real Tory promise. So, if he is not going to raise those taxes and manage to reduce the deficit how could he go about it? What about all the taxes he has not mentioned?

These 3 taxes account for something like 65% of the Government’s income so not being able to raise them means one of 2 things. Either the taxes not mentioned, business taxes and rates for example, are in the firing line or Welfare spending is going to be decimated.

To a large extent we know that The Tory Party has the Welfare budget in its sights. £12bn of undisclosed cuts has to mean more misery for the least well off. Without the prospect of tax rises those cuts can only be worse than feared. Remember that Danny Alexander said only yesterday that the Liberal Democrats stopped The Tory party from making swinging cuts to child benefit in the last parliament. (Alexander actually said “slash” which is an English slang term for urinating. Pissing on the Poor is what a lot of people think that The Tory party has already done.)

Beyond the headline The Tory party has made an interesting statement. If we need a law to make them keep their promises then does that mean that all the other Tory pledges are not really pledges? How much of what they say can we trust?

Another interesting, well to me anyway, facet is that for the first time The Tory party is limiting the scope of the Chancellor’s power to raise and vary taxes. They have never done that before, and with good reason. Imagine an economic downturn. What can the Chancellor do? Without repealing that no tax rise law, he would have one hand tied behind his back. It would have to be a crisis for them to repeal the law, so his options would be reduced to cutting local government funding or hitting the poorest, again. Then again, The Tory party would not baulk at that, so that’s OK then.

Tags: cameron, Theresa May, tory, Tory Party