Thursday, 22 March 2012

The “granny tax”

The British government decided to tax the UK’s pensioners and at the same time announced that the 50 percent levy will drop to 45 percent next year, which means that the rich will pay fewer taxes and become richer. According to Ros Altmann, the director-general of the Saga Group, “this Budget contains an enormous stealth tax for older people”.


This is conservative economics 101. In fact, is nothing more than a big gamble. The government believes that business and rich people are the drivers of economic growth. They also think that those kinds of measures are going to reduce anti-tax avoidance schemes and will encourages businesses and rich people to bring their money back to the UK. In reality, they don’t know if this is going to work or not.


The chancellor George Osborne made an ideological guess. No one knows if it’s the right choice. Only one thing is for sure: his guessing game would not benefit the poorest pensioners. In fact, it will be very costly for them.

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