Things are seldom what they seem

On Budget day the Chancellor claimed he had cut the tax burden by £4.75 billion. How?

1. By ignoring the £2.75 billion that abolition of MIRAS would cost;

2. By treating an increase in working families' tax credit as a reduction (a further £1.5 billion).

Not content with this, he omitted to mention certain items:

1. the abolition of the 20p tax band;

2. the end of tax relief for maintenance payments;

3. the year's gap between the abolition of married couple's allowance and the introduction of children's tax credit.

And all this from a party who campaigned on a platform of openness and honesty. Things are seldom what they seem!

MERVYN TURNBERG

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.