Andy Burnham out of his mind – new pledge to QUADRUPLE inheritance tax | Personal Finance | Finance
Don’t believe it. Burnham is likely to be an even bigger disaster than Sir Keir, especially for taxpayers. I know that sounds hard to believe. Under Starmer, Labour has hit us for as much as £75billion of new taxes. But instead of reversing that, Burnham is likely to put his foot to the floor. Especially if the bond market won’t let him borrow more money. It’s going to end in disaster, and families are right in the firing line.
As we learned last week, the only thing Labour MPs want to do is hike tax and find somebody to foot the bill. That’s what happens when you fill Parliament with more than 400 former trade union activists, public sector workers and social justice campaigners. They’ve got zero business experience and seem to think you just take money from whoever you fancy and all will be well. Then they wonder why the economy stops growing.
Burnham is cut from the same cloth. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t stand a chance of getting into No 10. Just look at the people supporting him: Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband. Both have launched a frontal assault on economic sense. Burnham is just as deluded, and could be weeks from power. Terrifying.
Rachel Reeves has already paved the way with her moronic mansion tax. That will be so complex too introduce, it will cost more money than it makes. Deutsche Bank predicts house prices will fall 5% this year as buyers give up. That will make millions of us feel even poorer and destroy still more growth.
Burnham has also talked about hiking the top rate of income tax from 45% to 50%. Most people won’t complain, because they don’t pay it. But it’s another punch in the face of the aspirational. Economist Dan Neidle has run the numbers and estimates it would raise just £1.2billion. Has Burnham done his sums? I doubt it. It would be out of character.
He’s also floated a new type of inheritance tax, an extra 10% death tax on everything. That’s despite inheritance tax already hitting record highs under Reeves, with more to come.
Interestingly, Burnham has combined both of his brain cells and named a specific use for the extra money. He wants to spend it on social care. Again, the maths doesn’t tally.
Last year, HMRC raised just under £9billion from inheritance tax. The annual cost of social care is £39billion. That’s more than four times as much. So if Burnham is serious about funding social care from inheritance tax alone, he is effectively talking about quadrupling family bills. That’ll be popular.
When it comes to finance, he’s already shown his shortcomings. He triggered a spike in UK borrowing costs with his waffle about how Britain should get beyond being “in hock” to the bond market. Just a few loose words cost us as much as his 50% tax charge will generate in a year.
