New clause 5 - Report to Parliament (No.1)
Armed Forces (Pensions and Compensation) Bill
3:30 pm
Mr Desmond Swayne (New Forest West, Conservative)
Of course, one way of providing a more generous armed forces pension scheme would undoubtedly be higher taxes, but it is a myth that there are people out there who are sufficiently rich to pay higher taxes. The lesson of history is that whenever we
have sought to soak the rich we have ended up taxing people on ordinary incomes much more heavily. Before the war, one had to earn twice the average income to pay any income tax at all. Now one starts paying income tax at somewhat less than half average income, and that when we have increasingly embraced that notion of progressive taxation, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. I do not detect any enthusiasm for the prescription that he offers. No one writes to me to offer to pay higher taxes.