The UK personal allowance has been frozen at £12,570 since 2021 and is legislated to remain at that level until 2031. This has led to fiscal drag as wages rise with inflation, pulling more income into tax. Reform UK has proposed increasing it to £15,000, claiming it would save basic rate taxpayers up to £486 a year at a cost of around £18 billion in the first year.
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4 Opinions
If people want a high tax and spend state they’d better get used to paying for it. There is a difference between a welfare safety net and a redistribution of wealth by coercion, a.k.a living at someone else’s expense. In retrospect it was a mistake to scrap the 10% starter tax band as increasing the tax-free allowance insulates voters from the consequences of voting for socialism.
As wages rise more people are being drawn into paying tax again. Meaning less money for repairs, food, clothes, heating, and so on. This will not help the general finances of the UK. The whole point of keeping the low paid workers out of paying tax is to ensure money continues to flow, keep the ball rolling so to speak, rather than slow down growth, it will help industries in many ways.
Freezing the allowance at twelve grand while inflation went through the roof was a stealth mugging of working class payslips. Why the hell are people like shift workers and cleaners paying 20% income tax on bare survival wages? Raising it to £15,000 puts nearly £500 back in our pockets where it belongs. And don't tell me, it means cutting public services money... fund the £18bn by finally taxing billionaire wealth and capital gains at the same rate as hard grafting