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11/04/10 :"A levy on banks should be used to pay back the bank bail-out, not for Tory social engineering":
A proposal by shadow-Chancellor George Osborne to use the proceeds of a levy on banks to give some married couples a £150 a year tax break has come under withering attack from Labour's parliamentary candidates in Reading.
Reading West's Naz Sarkar says: "Mismanagement and misjudgement by the banks led to them having to be massively bailed out by the tax-payer so as to keep the ATM's going, and that's the main reason why the country now has a large financial deficit. Cutting that deficit is important, and the first call should be on the banks who caused it in the first place. The idea that we should use that money not to cut the deficit, which is what only a few weeks ago David Cameron was saying was the top priority, and use it instead to 'encourage marriage' is just bizarre."
And from Reading East Anneliese Dodds adds: "I don't think even the Tories think people will decide to get married or stay married for the sake of a £150 tax break - getting married after all costs a lot more than that! They see it as just a statement, but if it's a statement it's a very nasty one. It says that if your partner dies, you have to pay more tax. It says that if your partner leaves you, then you will pay more tax as a result. And of course if you leave your partner - which could be for very good reason such as domestic violence - you will end up paying more tax.
"This is not just the nanny state, it's the nasty nanny state. There should be no place in our tax system for this sort of social engineering."
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