LETTER - LIB DEMS WANT TO TAX YOU (19/04/02)

Dear Editor,

If we thought Brown's budget was bad, imagine what it would have been like under the Liberal Democrats.

In their alternative budget there were no less than ten new tax hikes. They want 1% on income tax. They would want to bite you with a new 'local income tax'too. This would be up to 8% on the basic rate of income tax.

In order to discourage success, they would introduce 50% income tax for high earners. There would be no motivation at all for hard-working entrepreheurs and companies to strive for greater achievement, to bring success and wealth into the local economy.

A speciality of the Liberal Democrats is a new "carbon tax". Sounds suspiciously irrelevent on the surface but in real terms would mean higher heating bills for the elderly and those least able to afford it and hit local industry by raising manufacturing costs.

They also want to create a VAT on new houses. It is hard enough for first-time buyers in Somerset to get a foot on the housing ladder. The Liberal Democrats want to make it even more difficult. A VAT of just 7% would add an average of £7000 to the cost of buying a new house. Also, their New Development Tax would push up the prices of property and leave swaithes of green fields open to development.

Following Gordon Brown's equivalent of 3p on income tax, their nonsense of a penny on income tax to solve the country's problems has been ridiculed. It simply doesn't add up. The Times commented that they use the concept to 'sustain an unrealistically diverse series of policy pledges.' (9 April 2002)

What they can't do nationally, the Liberal-Democrats are doing locally. Their 12.9% Council Tax increase, for example, places a disproportionate burden on the local taxpayer. It takes no account of ability to pay. It is unjust, it is unfair, and it is typically Liberal Democrat!

We should count our blessings they have no power nationally.

Cllr John Smeaton
Conservative Group Leader
County Hall
Taunton
Somerset
TA1 4DY