I suppose the bedrock of any coalition must be the readiness to compromise. It is for that reason that the Lib Dems have had to swallow (among other things) the Tories’ aggressive cuts agenda and Michael Gove’s potty ‘Free School’ nonsense in return for progress towards a £10,000 tax threshold, limited political reform and the ability to restrain the mouth-foaming wing of the Conservative Party.
Within the culture of compromise there still have to be red lines, however. With George Osborne’s ‘Emergency’ Budget on the horizon, first and foremost among these should be a Lib Dem refusal to countenance any increase in VAT.
As I’ve written before, VAT is the worst tax of all. It gives the impression of fairness (no one is exempt, the more you spend the more you pay in tax) yet disproportionately punishes the poorest because they naturally spend a higher proportion of their income (VAT accounts for 13.6% of the gross household income for the poorest 10%, compared to 4.1% for the wealthiest 10%). In addition the wealthy can afford to have their accountants play with the books and claim large chunks of VAT back from the taxman – those on the minimum wage cannot.
Let’s not forget that the Tories spent most of the election campaign bitching about the rise in NI contributions (in fact, they could barely squeeze a sentence out of their over-indulged mouths without uttering the campaign’s most irritating soundbite – “Labour’s Jobs Tax”) yet now there’s every chance they will impose an additional cost on small businesses in the form of VAT. Never mind, at least the super-wealthy won’t be too badly affected.
Of course, Labour supporters will erupt in faux outrage if and when Osborne raises VAT on Tuesday, conveniently ignoring the fact that their standard defence when asked about an increase during the election campaign was exactly the same as the Tories – “We have no plans to raise VAT” or “You can’t expect me to reveal what would be in our first Budget”. They will try to have a field day on this issue, but anyone from the Labour Party who tells you they wouldn’t have raised VAT if they’d won the election is either dishonest, deluded or both.
Lib Dems are naturally opposed to regressive forms of taxation such as VAT – or at least, they should be. There’s little dispute that, allied with a certain level of spending cuts, taxation will have to rise to offset the deficit left by the last government, but surely the fairest – and most honest – way of doing that is via Income Tax. This most straightforward of taxes is based on what you earn, and is clearly outlined in your payslip. It is universally regarded as the most ‘progressive’ form of taxation and, while no one particularly likes paying it, at least we would all know where we stood. Why then are the Coalition so scared of it?