Morgan McSweeney, Labour’s campaign manager has been spotted in the likes of a LinkedIn post in favour of a £15billion tax hike.
This has sparked fears that Labour are planning to increase Capital Gains Tax should they win the General Election.
The post by Matthew Torbitt, Senior Researcher & Communications Officer at House of Commons said: “Labour would be wise politically to raise capital gains tax, it is an easy sell to the three in 100 that currently pay it.
“We have to ask ourselves what sort of society we want to live in.
“A small rise would bring in over £15bn – lifting the two child cap would cost £1.6bn.
“Sounds a good idea to me!”
Sir Keir Starmer has ruled out many mainstream tax rises
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Tom Harwood, Deputy Political Editor at GBNews, who spotted Sweeny’s like on Linkedin said: “Labour’s campaign manager and the man behind Keir Starmer’s leadership strategy – Morgan McSweeney – just liked this interesting LinkedIn post in favour of a £15 BILLION tax hike.”
Sir Keir Starmer has ruled out many mainstream tax rises, however he has repeatedly refused to rule out potential Capital Gains Tax (CGT) increases.
The Tories have claimed that Labour is planning a series of secret tax raids, including the possibility of making the sale of a primary residence liable for capital gains tax.
However, Starmer has ruled out imposing CGT on the sale of people’s homes and said it was “desperate” tactics from the Tories to suggest that he would.
The Labour leader said he could “absolutely” guarantee that would not happen.
Starmer told reporters on a visit to a hospital in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, last week: “This was just a desperate story by the Tories in relation to capital gains tax on primary residences.”
He added: “There was never a policy so it doesn’t need ruling out, but let’s rule it out in case anybody pretends that it was.”
James Austen, partner at Collyer Bristow law firm, has given a view on what this might mean in practice if Labour did increase CGT.
He said: “If Labour were to raise the rate of CGT – potentially bringing it into line with income tax (currently, a maximum of 45 per cent) – this could even come as soon as an emergency budget in the first few weeks of the new government.
“Though not a particularly large source of tax revenue, raising CGT rates could nonetheless provide a Labour government with room for additional spending, which would otherwise be difficult to fund given the party’s promise not to raise VAT, National Insurance or income tax.
“Traditionally, CGT rates are fixed for the whole of a tax year, from 6 April in one year until 5 April in the following year. However, there is precedent for an immediate mid-year CGT rate rise: George Osborne did this when increasing CGT from 18 per cent to 28 per cent in 2010.
“As a result, taxpayers with assets standing at a material gain might wish to take advice on triggering disposals of those assets at current tax rates before the election on July 4.”
