UK Chancellor Alistair Darling appears ready to announce a whole range of tax increases targeted at higher earners.According to the Telegraph Darling is expected to use the Pre-Budget Report to increase the rate of tax on company profits and levy additional taxes on the super rich such as bankers. These tax increases are on top of the increases announced last year that will come into effect in April 2010. Already in the pipeline are increases in national insurance plus a 50% tax rate for those earning more than £150,000 per annum.
Sadly for the socialists in charge of UK government finances, they do not seem to recognise that these sorts of taxes will just drive higher earners away. They are the sort of tactics tried by the Labour governments of the 1960s and 1970s. The public sector deficit is expected to top £175 billion in 2009/10 as tax revenues fall.
