Rishi Sunak mulls return of 50p tax rate for top earners

The Prime Minister is considering breaking a Tory party manifesto pledge by raising the top rate of income tax from 45p to 50p. An alternative Rishi Sunak is reportedly considering is to lower the £150,000 annual income threshold at which it kicks in. The Treasury is also looking at increasing the National Insurance rate paid by employers by 1.25 percentage points, despite Liz Truss recently reversing the hike. Increasing the rate from 13.8% to 15.05% would raise £5bn a year for the Treasury, according to the IFS. With rumours circulating that inheritance tax thresholds could be frozen for a further two years, along with a freeze on the threshold at which businesses have to register to pay VAT and a raid on capital gains tax, former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith warned that now was “clearly not the time to pile further misery” on hard working families. He said: “I don’t believe he should be raising taxes just as we are going into a recession and with the highest tax base for 70 years.”

The Daily Telegraph

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