Tory tax plans

The first of the day's press conference on tax moves. Present - David Cameron, George Osborne and Chris Grayling.

"Well will not walk on by" says Dave, saying that the focus of his moves are to keep people in work, but that "Irresponsible borrowing that created recession will not help us out of it"

The new plan appears to be a £2.5bn package of measures to give tax breaks to companies who employ new workers, the idea being that companies that are still hiring workers are incentivised to do so. It is financed by the £8,000 saving to the taxpayer that is realised when people move from unemployment benefit into work. It is claimed that it will keep 350,000 in work.

CCHQ has just released this document explaining how it will work.

Dave set out the moral case for keeping people in employment yesterday and this continues the theme of compassionate Conservatism.

Other than this there was little new - the other policy proposals had been previously anounced i.e.:

- Will freeze council tax for two years
- Take family homes out of inheritance tax
- Abolish the Vehicle Excise Duty changes.


And that's it...

These measures are very modest, and I daresay that the punk tax-cutters in the Conservative party will be infuriated. There is the very real risk of being outflanked on tax by Labour (who are up next).

In response, Dave says, "We'd like to do more, but we have to recognise the extent of the public spending deficit"

Hmm - let's wait and see what Gordon's proposals are... My thoughts are, that politically, Dave's moves will have little traction with the public.