The Great Debate UK
Nothing is certain but death and taxes
-Rachel Mason is public relations manager at Fair Investment Company. The opinions expressed are her own.-
If there is one thing in this life you can be sure about it is that you are going to be taxed a lot. You can’t escape it.
You are taxed on your income, then you are taxed on the money from your income that you have already been taxed on when it becomes savings, then you are taxed on your pension, which is made up of cash that you have already been taxed on, and then there’s road tax, car tax, council tax, VAT, stamp duty….the list goes on.
And then of course, just when you thought you couldn’t be taxed anymore, you get taxed on any profit you make when you sell any assets – assets bought with money that’s already been taxed! I am talking of course about the tax that’s the talk of the moment – capital gains tax.
The new coalition government is planning to increase capital gains tax from its current rate of 18 per cent to 40 per cent or possibly even 50 per cent, a move that aims to stop ‘fat cats’ from taking their income as capital gains (the 18 per cent capital gains tax rate is lower than their 40 percent income tax rate) and that is all very well, apart from the fact that it is going to hit millions more, the vast majority of whom are certainly not fat cats.
