Healey claims to be bringing tax relief to millions. But it is the Labour Government which has taxed the working class to the limit.
The indirect taxation proposed in the Budget on petrol, drink and cigarettes will raise the cost of living by nearly one percent. These taxes hit out at the consumer. The £115m raised in this way will come from the pockets of the millions, not the coffers of the oil, tobacco and liquor monopolists. Prices All the tax increases will be directly passed on in higher prices. The argument that an increase in the price of petrol will serve the interests of conservation and anti-pollution is rubbish. Only an integrated transport system with prices accessible to the working class would offer such a possibility. Labour's policy is quite the reverse, increasing fares on all public transport and cutting back on the existing services.
There has been much talk by the Treasury mandarins of the benefits to "Mr Normal' who has two children under 11 and gets the average manual wage. But until the 1968 Budget introduced by Roy Jenkins, Mr Normal' did not pay any income tax.
Since then the burden of taxes on working people has risen enormous v Under the last two Budgets introduced by Denis Healey, nearly one pound a week in real terms has been knocked off disposable income through the combined effects of inflation and taxation. Just to reduce the proportion of workers income taken in tax to 1974 levels would mean moving the personal allowance for a married worker up to £1,255 not the marginal increase of £130 to £1,085 proposed.
Healey will not even give real concessions in return for wage controls. He is like a robber who having taken £1,000, then says that it is a concession if he gives back £100!
Among the reasons for this huge increase in taxation is the Government's need to pay off its debts. In the future money paid out to City financiers will zoom-and so will taxation Interest The cuts in social spending were needed partly to resource the huge Interest wich nas grown up on te national debt. This debt is the result of the sale of stocks by the Government to the finance houses to meet its expenditure. The money-lenders' interest repayments will reach the staggering sum of £3,050m by 1979 The International Monetary Fund -as a condition of more loans-has given the Labour Government only two ways out of this growing bankruptcy situation; increased taxation on incomes or more cuts in social expenditure. All the signs are that the Labour Government will do both. class. other way to pay for social services. But it is a lie that the tax revenue goes only to help the deservingunless City financiers are included in this category. The cessation of all interest payments to these gentlemen would immediately remove a massive burden off the backs of the working Equally the proposals of the Labour Party Home Policy Committee to nationalise the banks and six insurance companies and reveal all the accounts of the Bank of England and the Big Four' could provide an initial starting point for a campaign for workers control of the activities of the City-beginning with the demand for the opening of their accounts to the labour movement.
The tragi-comic taxation of those already paid so miserably that they are entitled to state benefits is only the tip of an enormous iceberg of misery produced by the throwing of the burden of meeting the capitalist state's debts onto the backs of the