Clause 2
Finance Bill
11:30 am
David Gauke (Shadow Minister, Treasury; South West Hertfordshire, Conservative)
I have the Q and A that was circulated internally. We have made it clear that the policy is targeted at basic rate taxpayers. We shall continue to have a tapering system. Indeed, in that interview on “Money Box”, some of the criticism that my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor was getting was that the policy would not benefit some pensioners who were earning somewhat more. The policy is clear.
The tax back campaign raises two important points, one of which is how our policy would help the lower earners—pensioners who do not receive enough from their savings to pay the basic rate of income tax. There are a large number of such people, who do not always get their tax back and do not always go through the process to reclaim. That is not to say that we do not welcome the Government’s initiative to encourage more people to get their tax back—indeed, I raised the point with the Minister this time last year, asking what the Government were doing about it, and the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group has campaigned on the issue for a long time. None the less, a reasonably substantial number of people—in particular, a reasonably substantial number of pensioners—are not getting their tax back in the way that they should and I suspect that that will continue to be the case. Our policy would help those people.