Labour’s tax plans will be unfair to many small businesses – Yorkshire Post Letters

WE HAVE been well served by the assiduity of Andrew Neil and his BBC researchers.

His revelation, and the admission by Mr Corbyn, that some low earners would pay more income tax under Labour proposals, as an effect of their proposed abolition of the married couples’ allowance, would be a tax burden of a few hundred pounds per couple.

Hundreds queue to watch Jeremy Corbyn speak in Leeds as he urges people not to let Brexit ‘divide us’

However, this would be small beer compared to Labour’s proposals to lift dividend tax from 7.5 per cent to 20 per cent for basic rate taxpayers.

Over the last two decades since corporation tax rate changes introduced by the Blair Government, many small business operators have chosen to incorporate their businesses, and draw some dividends rather than all salary.

Corbyn’s eye-catching ‘For the many, not the few’ jacket made by Yorkshire tailor

Their companies have generally paid 20 per cent corporation tax on their profits, i.e. matching the 20 per cent income tax deducted from salary, in other words tax neutral.

In my experience, there are likely to be tens of thousands of one director small companies throughout the UK which will be hit by these tax increases – plumbers, electricians, professional contractors, sales reps, entertainment workers, and a wide range of other trades and professions.

I know this because of personal experience.

If I extrapolate my comparatively tiny provincial experience, I quickly arrive at the large numbers I mention above.

Around the end of the 1990s it was reported that new company incorporations ran into six figures.

I offer the above as just one example of the unfairness of the Labour Party manifesto.

You could also potentially add in some savers who, unable to get any sensible return from cash deposit savings, have been forced to enter the share markets.

They, too, could see their tax bills rise enormously.

It is interesting to note that the Labour Party expect this tax charge to produce £9bn extra revenue.

“Only those who earn over £80,000 will pay additional income tax “ - are they sure about that?

From: Jenny Eaves, Balby, Doncaster.

WHATEVER one thinks of Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto policies – and I think many of them do have some merit – it was alarming to see his apparent lack of understanding over how many of them will be paid for and impact taxpayers and pensioners during his interview with Andrew Neil.