Treasury Minister Refuses to Rule Out Wealth Tax in Autumn – Guido Fawkes

Treasury Minister Refuses to Rule Out Wealth Tax in Autumn

Treasury minister James Murray was on the morning media rounds, flogging the government’s latest ‘boost’ for public transport – £415 million to fix up crumbling rail links between Manchester, Huddersfield, Leeds, and York, plus electrification between Manchester and York as part of the multibillion-pound TransPennine Route Upgrade. A nice announcement…except the Tories already made it…

Naturally, Murray was pressed on the real question of whether further tax hikes are coming in the Autumn Budget after the IFS warned Reeves will likely come back for more if her so-called “headroom” disappears. Murray refused to rule out that the government was planning another tax raid, telling Sky:

“Well look this is a hypothetical situation from the IFS what we’re focused on the economy grow there must be plans in already under discussion the plans that we are focused on delivering is to get economic growth up.”

Murray was also asked on BBC Breakfast whether Labour might introduce a wealth tax – something the IFS floated and is pushed by some Labour backbenchers. Again, he wouldn’t deny it, saying:

“I’m not going to write budgets here live on air…we must make sure our public finance are on a stable footing.”

Instead, he reeled off a list of what the government is already doing to “make sure the wealthiest pay a fair share” – scrapping non-dom status, taxing private jets, and increasing inheritance tax – a repeat of Darren Jones’ BBC Question Time spiel last night. New line from the Treasury: we’re already taxing the rich. Just not ruling out taxing them even more come Autumn…