Treasury sources have briefed the FT that John Healey will not hike Capital Gains Tax by 87.5% to equalise it with Income Tax. Hardly a relief…
CEOs and business have been warning the Labour government against such a move because it is a popular idea in the Labour Party, supported by Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, among others. Raising the higher rate from 24% to 45% would be an unmitigated disaster…
The Treasury has left the door open to a smaller hike in CGT in this briefing, which was designed to calm nerves. Unfortunately any hike would be damaging…
Jeremy Hunt said: “Every chancellor is briefed that the revenue-maximising rate of capital gains tax is 24 per cent after which you start losing money. Officials will never say Arthur Laffer has a point but that is the gist of it.” They would never admit the most obvious point in tax policy…
Healey previously said CGT is “low” in the UK. The UK top CGT rate is 24% while the 2026 EU average is 17.7% and the 2026 wider-European average is 16.7%. So UK’s 24% rate is 36% higher than the EU average and 44% higher than the wider European average…
Burnham’s erstwhile adviser Jim O’Neill said any rate hike is bad news:
“The one I would be most disappointed in would be capital gains tax. That would pour more fuel on this idea that every other wealthy person is planning to move to Place X.”
60% of the economists surveyed in the Times said hiking CGT would be counterproductive and damage economic growth. Will Healey rule out any hike to Capital Gains Tax?
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock was asked if Burnham will take Britain back into the EU:
“Yes, sure – his commitment is authentic. He really does understand from the grassroots up why restoring what I think of as normality in our continent is vital for every party economically, politically, culturally, in terms of security, and he’s able to articulate it in language that people can understand. So yeah, he is definitely”.