When Is A Tax-Cut Not A Tax-Cut?

But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ …

Ephesians 4:15

When is a tax-cut not a tax-cut? When it’s a Tory one! We are in the throes of general election hype and spin. The Conservative Party has announced that if voted back into government the state pension will never be taxed even if it increases above the current tax-free threshold of around £12,500. They are presenting this as a tax-cut, which it isn’t because the state pension does not currently exceed the tax-free threshold and won’t for a good few years to come, so nobody’s actually paying any tax on their state pensions! Setting that aside, in itself it’s not a bad idea and certainly worth considering. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount  I received in state pension (currently around £800 a month) but it wouldn’t be easy to survive on it if it were all the income you had as a pensioner. So, to have the assurance that it will never be taxed would reassure those who do rely wholly or mostly on it.  But it isn’t a tax-cut.

Which brings me to Rachel Reeves and Labour. On Sunday, she ruled out any increases in income tax or National Insurance if she were to be Chancellor in the next government. Instead, she reassures “us” (which “us” would that be I wonder?) that Labour is the natural party for business and will “grow the economy” in order to raise funds for the spending plans of a future Labour government. Nonetheless, she concedes that she would have “difficult decisions” to make on spending! Meanwhile, Keir Starmer has pledged to hit the 18 week waiting time target for NHS consultations within five years of assuming power. So, I wonder how is Labour going to do that – closing all the prisons and releasing all prisoners into the community perhaps, maybe this is the “difficult” spending decision Rachel Reeves will make? It would certainly save a lot of money which could be diverted to the NHS!

Our political culture is one in which the major protagonists refuse to be honest. We cannot have an honest debate on tax and spending, instead of setting out the alternatives and the costs and consequences of the various alternatives we are fed sound bites intended to lull or deceive into acceptance. Why can Rachel Reeves not say I have to raise £x billions to ensure that we can hit the 18 week NHS consultation targets which may mean raising taxes by  x%, but if the economy grows by a  certain amount it may be less? Why do the Tories have to dress-up a proposal worth considering as a “tax-cut” when it is nothing of the sort? The Bible teaches us to “speak the truth in love” but as a society we seem incapable of doing this. Unfortunately, this simply opens the doors to Satan, the father of lies as Jesus famously described him, with the terrible consequences that we see and hear about all too frequently.