50p tax rate to stay until at least 2015
The 50p tax rate for top earners will stay in place until at least 2015, despite calls from business leaders and many Tory spokespeople to scrap it.
This is according to the Daily Telegraph, which said it has found out that David Cameron and chancellor George Osborne are unwilling to abolish the income tax because it would appear as though the government was pandering to the wealthy.
Gordon Brown introduced the 50p tax rate in 2010 and it affected the 300,000 highest earners in the UK. The rate is levied on taxable incomes greater than £150,000 a year and its aim was to raise an extra £2.4 billion for the economy by 2011.
Cameron has been under pressure from entrepreneurs and members of his own party to get rid of it amid claims that little money is being raised, but HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is currently producing a report that is expected to quash these allegations.
According to the Telegraph, HMRC's document will demonstrate there has been a "surge" in revenue generated as a result of the tax.
It is therefore believed that the rate will stay in place until at least 2015 unless it can be proved before then that it is damaging the economy.
"We are repeatedly emphasising the need for those with the broadest shoulders to do more. So we can hardly turn around and start cutting taxes for them first," a parliamentary spokesperson commented.
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