New data just released by HMRC shows Capital Gains Tax receipts have shot up by 16.3% in the third quarter ahead of the budget. Coming in at £572 million from July to September – compared to £492 million in 2023. Realise your gains, realise your gains…

September’s CGT receipts hit £192 million, which is the highest figure since 2008. Inheritance Tax receipts, boosted by frozen thresholds, hit £4.3 billion between April and September, a 10% increase on the year before. Evidence shows that people actually give up the ghost to avoid the death tax…

Starmer’s personal firefighting over budget speculation on an incoming Capital Gains hike hasn’t worked, then. More evidence of the Laffer Curve in action will likely present itself if Reeves chooses to hike CGT in the budget – HMRC itself predicts a 10% hike would lower revenues by £2 billion. Labour’s tax crosshairs are clearly set on growth-promoting wealth…

Care Minister Stephen Kinnock was asked a pretty simple question ahead of the budget this morning: “Are six-figure earners working people?” No response – six times in a row…

Kinnock eventually said Labour hadn’t worked out what a “working person” was yet: “Obviously the definitions have to be seen in the round and that’s what’s going to be put on the table.” Rachel Reeves made it clear, though, what the party’s definition of working people was during the election campaign: “Working people are people who get their income from going out to work everyday, and also pensioners that have worked all their lives and are now in retirement.” Which obviously includes those who receive a large salary…

Kinnock just said: “our manifesto made it absolutely clear that we will not be raising National Insurance income tax or VAT on working people.” A cynical combination of two entirely different sentences in the manifesto…

Streeting said yesterday that Labour’s “focus” when it came to not hiking taxes was on “people who are on lower or middle ­incomes.” It only took a hundred days for Labour to give up its growth-friendly façade…

Amid the flurry of pre-budget briefing the FT now reports that Reeves will extend Sunak’s 2021 income tax threshold freeze beyond 2028, when it was due to end. The current threshold freeze will raise more than £33.5bn by 2029 and will drag 3.8 million more taxpayers into the additional rate band….

The stealth tax was a big focus for Labour’s attack operation before the election. Reeves said last year “Labour aims to lift a freeze on tax thresholds that is on track to cost workers on the basic 20% rate of income tax £750 a year each.” The party’s assault on the “25 Tory Tax Rises” singled out thresholds in particular: “Labour has found that Tory stealth tax rises over the next two years have hit the average sales assistant with a £660 tax bombshell.” Not only will Reeves not reverse the tresholds – she is specifically set to make the “bombshell” worse for longer…

Labour claims that the manifesto pledges won’t be broken with this because Labour only pledged to keep rates at the same level. The public are sure to be sympathetic…

Latest figures from the the Institute of Directors have optimism in the economic outlook falling  to its lowest level since 2022. The index took a dive to -38 in September, down from -12 in August…

Confidence in firms’ prospects has also dipped while investment intentions have droppped to their lowest point since September 2020. Directors cite “concerns over likely tax increases, the cost of workers’ rights, international competitiveness,” and “broader cost pressures” in their latest dour assessment of times to come. Reeves’ budget summarised…

Meanwhile the Tories’ £3,500 business day at Conference has received poor reviews with little interest from firms and tickets getting a two-thirds discount at the last minute to egg on interest. At least they didn’t ask for their money back this time…

New data today from HMRC shows that inheritance tax revenue is soaring to new heights thanks to the Tories’ threshold freeze, which continues to drag increasing numbers of estates into payment. Receipts have jumped to £2.8 billion, £200 million up from the year before…

Rumours abound in industry circles that Reeves is drawing up plans to eliminate “loopholes” in IHT which allow for productive investment, including a relief on shares held in the junior Alternative Investment Market which allows them to be passed on tax free as long as they’ve been held for at least two years. AIM has already been riddled with delistings – experts say scrapping the relief will cause “irrecoverable damage”…

Meanwhile the leftist Resolution Foundation is now lobbying Reeves to remove the £175,000 additional inheritance tax allowance for families with children, which it claims “costs” the Treasury £2 billion and is “complex and distortionary.” Dragging everyone into payment – no wonder consumers are dreading the budget…

Left-wing think tank the IPPR is today pushing for tax hikes on wealth to address “regional wealth inequality.” Because capital gains are realised in London and the South East apparently that means opportunity” is “not accessible across the UK”…

The chief recommendation of the IPPR to “regionally rebalance the UK” is a gargantuan tax hike:

“Taxing all income equally: In the long-term we propose a unified tax schedule for all income types, including capital gains and dividends, to align with income from work by the end of this parliament. In the short-term, we propose the equalisation of capital gains tax with income tax implemented at the first fiscal event of this parliament.”

The IPPR is dressing up old ideas to roll the pitch for Reeves’ October budget. This exact policy was proposed in a 2018 report from the think tank which was co-written by one Carys Roberts. Roberts, former IPPR executive director, is now ensconced in Downing Street’s policy unit, working alongside fellow ex-director Rachel Statham. The capitalism-sceptic think tank is said to be “doing the most serious and influential policy work around the Labour party.” That work can accelerate now its personnel are at the heart of policy making in government…

The same 2018 report called for the replacement of inheritance tax with a whole-life gift tax, which is effectively a gargantuan enlargement of confiscation of family inheritance. As Guido revealed plugged-in tax lawyers are in active preparation for its imposition….

Reeves yesterday stoutly refused to rule out changes to capital gains or inheritance tax. This “Iron Chancellor” hogwash ain’t gonna last…