MING'S GREEN TAX POLICY PASSED (Scarborough and Whitby Liberal Democrats)

Scarborough and Whitby Liberal Democrats <info@scarboroughandwhitbylibdems.org.uk>

MING'S GREEN TAX POLICY PASSED

September 26, 2006 3:49 PM

At last week's conference in Brighton Liberal Democrats showed their resounding support for Ming Campbell's 'Green Tax Proposals'. The new 'Fairer, Simpler, Greener' tax policy is innovative and exciting. Ming is proving to voters that we are a party of substance and where the other main parties drown in green rhetoric and spin we are forging ahead with practicable solutions to our ever-more-alarming environmental problems.

The key elements to the new Lib Dem taxation policy are:

• Raise the level at which both income tax and national insurance

are paid to over £7,000

• Scrap the 10p rate

• Cut basic income tax rate by 2p to 20p

• Raise level at which 40p income tax rate starts to £50,000

• Replace the commitment to introducing a 50p rate on incomes

over £100,000 by (1)restricting tax relief on pension contributions

to the basic rate so that everyone paying into a pension

receives the same rate of Tax relief and (2) closing capital gains

tax loopholes

• Replace council tax with local income tax

• Scrap air departure duty on individuals and introduce an aircraft

tax based on the environmental rating of the aircraft

• Reform vehicle excise duty on new vehicles so that it is based

on the carbon emissions of the model - cleaner less polluting

vehicles will pay less than more polluting ones.

Tania Exley-Moore, PPC for Scarborough and Whitby said "I was a firm supporter of the 50p in the £1 tax policy for those earning over £100,000, but I support the green tax switch wholeheartedly. The party has done a fantastic job in coming up with a new approach to taxation. We want to tax the things that are bad for the environment and we still want to address the ever widening wealth gap that is such a huge social injustice. The new tax policy does both these things."