Lib Dems call for Budget audits
The Liberal Democrats have called for every annual government Budget to be independently audited by accountants.
A summary of their assessment of the impact of their measures will then be sent out to every taxpayer with their tax return.
The new proposal was put to the party at the conference in Bournemouth by Liberal Democrats Treasury spokesman Mathew Taylor.
He attacked the government’s ‘stealth’ taxes, as the only way to stop government using them was a proper audit so people know what is being taken by the government and from where.
The move is part of leader Charles Kennedy’s drive for ‘transparency’ on tax.He said that people where seeing through ‘the increasingly phoney Dutch auction on income tax between Labour and Tories’.
People would support higher taxes if they could see they’ve been well spent. The Liberal Democrats committed themselves to lowering the ten pence tax rate to nought taking 1.4 million people on low incomes out of tax altogether.
They propose a new fifty pence tax in the pound top rate of income tax kicking in at £100,000 a year.
The party would also increase child benefit but tax it at the marginal rate for the highest earner in a household with at least one higher rate tax earner.
And the party reaffirmed its commitment to increase one basic rate income tax by one penny in the pound if necessary and to stuck as an extra £1.20 on every packet of cigarettes to pay for the restoration of free dental and eye tests.
Lib Dem’s manifesto plans for devolved tax raising powers