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Chancellor slammed over 10p tax U-turn
A RAFT of new measures designed to soften the blow of the abolition of the 10p tax band has been dismissed by a South Tyneside councillor as a 'cheap gimmick'.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling has brought in a help package costing 2.7bn to cancel the impact of the cut and quell the outrage it caused.
From this September, the bottom limit of the individual tax allowance before income tax is paid will be raised by 600.
As a result, the Chancellor says the 4.2 million households that lost out because of the removal of the 10p band will be fully compensated.
The remaining 1.1 million, he claims, will have their losses halved.
However, Coun David Potts, leader of the Conservative group on South Tyneside Council, said: "This tired and discredited Labour government is looking increasingly dazed and confused.
"The British public will not be fooled by the Chancellor's last-minute u-turn.
"It's clearly a gimmick designed to grab cheap headlines before a potentially humiliating by-election defeat in a former Labour stronghold."
Coun Potts, due to contest Mr Darling's Edinburgh South West seat at the next general election, added: "Is there no end to the levels of public borrowing that the Gordon Brown administration will plunge the nation into in the name of political gain?"
The move has met with a mixed response among Gazette readers.
Dental nurse Kirsty Dunn, of Reading Road, South Shields, was set to end up 132 a year worse off after the band was axed.
The 28-year-old said: "It seems unfair that people with some of the smallest salaries are being picked on by the Government, and most people won't be bought off with these new measures.
"The Government should have reversed its decision to get rid of the 10p band and admitted it was wrong.
"Now it's made the tax system even more complicated. I don't see the point."
However, Margaret Harrison, 60, a part-time checkout operator from Whitburn, said: "With these new measures, I don't think I'll end up losing out overall.
"I don't think the Chancellor had any choice in this. He was pushed into it to boost morale among voters.
"Labour is supposed to be the party of the working man."
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Weather for South Shields
Wednesday 08 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -2 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 1 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: South
