Boris Johnson told his Cabinet on Tuesday that “the way forward” for the Government was to [deliver tax cuts](https://archive.ph/hwxcL) that would drive economic growth.
He made a similar pledge on tax cutting in a letter to Conservative MPs before Monday’s confidence vote in his leadership, and promised to be a tax-cutting Tory long before he became leader.
Yet Mr Johnson’s track record as Prime Minister so far tells a [very different story](https://archive.ph/oXUlO). Britain is heading for the highest tax burden [since the Second World War](https://archive.ph/XShqS) and public spending as a share of GDP is already higher than at any time since the 1940s.
Wednesday is tax freedom day, the day when workers metaphorically start earning money for themselves rather than the taxman, and it falls a whole week later than last year.
An audit of Boris Johnson’s pronouncements on the economy shows that he could swiftly bring the tax burden down if he followed through on previous pledges.
During the 2019 leadership contest, Mr Johnson pledged to raise the threshold for the 40p higher rate of income tax from £50,000 to £80,000, which would help at least a quarter of earners at some point in their lives, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Mr Johnson said this would take three million earners out of the higher rate tax band.
Mr Johnson had previously [used a 2018 column in The Telegraph](https://archive.ph/m7lle) to advise his party that: “We should say that tax henceforward will not go up.” Instead, he said, taxes should be cut and thresholds raised so that workers keep more of their hard-earned money, enabling them to spend it and promote economic growth.
Also in 2018, he said that the Government should be looking “not at rises but at cuts to income tax, capital gains tax and stamp duty”.
Meanwhile, the 2019 election manifesto promised to keep the “triple lock” on pensions, meaning state pensions would always rise in line with average earnings, inflation or 2.5 per cent, whichever was higher, to ensure that “older people have the security and dignity they deserve”.
What he did:
By the time of the 2019 general election, his pledge on the higher rate income tax threshold had been ditched, and instead income tax thresholds were frozen until 2025-6, meaning that ever more people were sucked into the higher rate as incomes went up. Instead of a tax cut, it was a “stealth” tax increase.
The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that the policy will create two million more higher rate taxpayers, rather than the three million fewer he promised in his pitch to Conservative members.
His zeal for cutting capital gains tax and stamp duty fizzled out, to be replaced by a “tax guarantee” that income tax would not increase.
In March, Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, announced an intention to cut the basic rate of income tax by 1p, though a 1.25 percentage point increase in National Insurance meant people will still be worse off.
Stamp duty was, temporarily, cut during the pandemic, between July 2020 and March 2021, before the cut was reversed.
Meanwhile, the pensions triple lock was scrapped – temporarily, ministers say – and in 2022-23 pensions will go up by 3.1 per cent, far below the rate of inflation and wage growth.
Mr Johnson promised in the 2019 general election manifesto that there would be no increases in National Insurance.
In the 2019 leadership election, he went further by pledging that he would align the income tax and National Insurance thresholds, so that NI would not be payable on the first £12,500 of earnings. In the manifesto he said it was his “ultimate ambition” to do this.
In a 2019 interview on LBC he said “read my lips – we will not be raising taxes on income, or VAT, or National Insurance, for the lifetime of the Parliament.”
What he did:
Instead of freezing National Insurance, Mr Johnson increased it, imposing a 1.25 percentage point increase which he said was needed to address waiting lists caused by Covid and to fix social care funding.
He called the increase a health and social care levy, in an apparent attempt to avoid calling it a National Insurance rise.
He argued that the increase was “necessary, fair and responsible” but faced a huge backlash from his own MPs who urged him to scrap or delay it.
Mr Johnson and the Treasury attempted to offset this by raising the threshold for the point at which NI contributions become payable. From July 6 this year the threshold will be increased from £9,880 to £12,570, meaning more people on the lowest incomes will not pay any NI.
*VAT, fuel duty and sugar taxes*
What he said:
Another one of Mr Johnson’s “tax guarantees” during the 2019 general election was that VAT would not be raised.
The ability to lower the tax was one of the post-Brexit freedoms championed by both Mr Johnson and Michael Gove during the EU referendum campaign.
In 2016 the pair wrote in The Sun: “In 1993, VAT on household energy bills was imposed. This makes gas and electricity much more expensive … when we Vote Leave, we will be able to scrap this unfair and damaging tax.”
They also said that fuel bills would be “lower for everyone”.
Fuel duty, currently 52.95p per litre on petrol and diesel, was not mentioned in the 2019 manifesto, which was keen to push forward some green credentials such as phasing out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.
Taxes on sugar and salt in unhealthy foods were also mulled over by Mr Johnson in his leadership campaign, where he pledged not to introduce any new levies until a review into them was complete.
What he did:
The pandemic gave the Conservatives the opportunity to lower VAT for the hospitality industry, which had been decimated by the loss of footfall from lockdown.
VAT fell to 5 per cent during the pandemic, rising to 12.5 per cent in October, before rising again to 20 per cent in April this year.
The move, which impacted the recovering industry, was called “catastrophic” by business groups, who said it would have a knock-on effect on inflation and hurt businesses leading the charge of the pandemic recovery.
The Chancellor’s spring statement announced that fuel duty, which according to Conservative backbenchers such as John Redwood, was well overdue a cut after a decade being frozen, was to be cut.
It saw the rate cut on petrol and diesel by 5 pence per litre across the whole of the UK (though VAT remains payable at 20 per cent).
This rate cut did not extend to that of household fuel bills, which Mr Johnson had previously argued was a Brexit “dividend” he wished to explore.
On further levies on food, despite Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy recommending a £3/kg tax on sugar and a £6/kg tax on salt in processed foods, the proposals were binned.
If the Torygraph has turned against Johnson then it really is the end for him.
well of course he wouldn’t be able to cut taxes due to the massive costs created by COVID – it cost a fortune to furlough people, and the alternative was not having lock-down or massive financial hit on redundant workers.The Telegraph is just an old-style, cut taxes, cut spending, scrap expensive projects, dole out more money to the rich – that’s what would replace Boris Johnson, not some sort of utopia – unless you see old-style tories as utopia of course
Anyone who wants to cut tax needs to say what area of public spending they want cut to pay for it. After 12 years of austerity are there really any areas that haven’t already been cut to the bone? The tax system could certainly be changed to put less burden on low and middle earners, and more on those who can afford to pay it. But I don’t see the Tories doing that.
5 comments
Our writers examine the economic ideas frequently touted, but rarely turned into policy, during almost three years in power
([🪞 link](https://archive.ph/zIsFq))
Boris Johnson told his Cabinet on Tuesday that “the way forward” for the Government was to [deliver tax cuts](https://archive.ph/hwxcL) that would drive economic growth.
He made a similar pledge on tax cutting in a letter to Conservative MPs before Monday’s confidence vote in his leadership, and promised to be a tax-cutting Tory long before he became leader.
Yet Mr Johnson’s track record as Prime Minister so far tells a [very different story](https://archive.ph/oXUlO). Britain is heading for the highest tax burden [since the Second World War](https://archive.ph/XShqS) and public spending as a share of GDP is already higher than at any time since the 1940s.
Wednesday is tax freedom day, the day when workers metaphorically start earning money for themselves rather than the taxman, and it falls a whole week later than last year.
An audit of Boris Johnson’s pronouncements on the economy shows that he could swiftly bring the tax burden down if he followed through on previous pledges.
*Personal taxation*
>>[Tax increases by area – graph](https://cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/c2370e77-9db5-4915-a54e-601d59b97501.html)
What he said:
During the 2019 leadership contest, Mr Johnson pledged to raise the threshold for the 40p higher rate of income tax from £50,000 to £80,000, which would help at least a quarter of earners at some point in their lives, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Mr Johnson said this would take three million earners out of the higher rate tax band.
Mr Johnson had previously [used a 2018 column in The Telegraph](https://archive.ph/m7lle) to advise his party that: “We should say that tax henceforward will not go up.” Instead, he said, taxes should be cut and thresholds raised so that workers keep more of their hard-earned money, enabling them to spend it and promote economic growth.
Also in 2018, he said that the Government should be looking “not at rises but at cuts to income tax, capital gains tax and stamp duty”.
Meanwhile, the 2019 election manifesto promised to keep the “triple lock” on pensions, meaning state pensions would always rise in line with average earnings, inflation or 2.5 per cent, whichever was higher, to ensure that “older people have the security and dignity they deserve”.
What he did:
By the time of the 2019 general election, his pledge on the higher rate income tax threshold had been ditched, and instead income tax thresholds were frozen until 2025-6, meaning that ever more people were sucked into the higher rate as incomes went up. Instead of a tax cut, it was a “stealth” tax increase.
The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that the policy will create two million more higher rate taxpayers, rather than the three million fewer he promised in his pitch to Conservative members.
His zeal for cutting capital gains tax and stamp duty fizzled out, to be replaced by a “tax guarantee” that income tax would not increase.
In March, Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, announced an intention to cut the basic rate of income tax by 1p, though a 1.25 percentage point increase in National Insurance meant people will still be worse off.
Stamp duty was, temporarily, cut during the pandemic, between July 2020 and March 2021, before the cut was reversed.
Meanwhile, the pensions triple lock was scrapped – temporarily, ministers say – and in 2022-23 pensions will go up by 3.1 per cent, far below the rate of inflation and wage growth.
*National Insurance*
>>[National accounts taxes as a percentage of GDP – graph](https://cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/f2df32db-93c4-4d8c-b27d-53978bdb48fc.html)
What he said:
Mr Johnson promised in the 2019 general election manifesto that there would be no increases in National Insurance.
In the 2019 leadership election, he went further by pledging that he would align the income tax and National Insurance thresholds, so that NI would not be payable on the first £12,500 of earnings. In the manifesto he said it was his “ultimate ambition” to do this.
In a 2019 interview on LBC he said “read my lips – we will not be raising taxes on income, or VAT, or National Insurance, for the lifetime of the Parliament.”
What he did:
Instead of freezing National Insurance, Mr Johnson increased it, imposing a 1.25 percentage point increase which he said was needed to address waiting lists caused by Covid and to fix social care funding.
He called the increase a health and social care levy, in an apparent attempt to avoid calling it a National Insurance rise.
He argued that the increase was “necessary, fair and responsible” but faced a huge backlash from his own MPs who urged him to scrap or delay it.
Mr Johnson and the Treasury attempted to offset this by raising the threshold for the point at which NI contributions become payable. From July 6 this year the threshold will be increased from £9,880 to £12,570, meaning more people on the lowest incomes will not pay any NI.
*VAT, fuel duty and sugar taxes*
What he said:
Another one of Mr Johnson’s “tax guarantees” during the 2019 general election was that VAT would not be raised.
The ability to lower the tax was one of the post-Brexit freedoms championed by both Mr Johnson and Michael Gove during the EU referendum campaign.
In 2016 the pair wrote in The Sun: “In 1993, VAT on household energy bills was imposed. This makes gas and electricity much more expensive … when we Vote Leave, we will be able to scrap this unfair and damaging tax.”
They also said that fuel bills would be “lower for everyone”.
Fuel duty, currently 52.95p per litre on petrol and diesel, was not mentioned in the 2019 manifesto, which was keen to push forward some green credentials such as phasing out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.
Taxes on sugar and salt in unhealthy foods were also mulled over by Mr Johnson in his leadership campaign, where he pledged not to introduce any new levies until a review into them was complete.
What he did:
The pandemic gave the Conservatives the opportunity to lower VAT for the hospitality industry, which had been decimated by the loss of footfall from lockdown.
VAT fell to 5 per cent during the pandemic, rising to 12.5 per cent in October, before rising again to 20 per cent in April this year.
The move, which impacted the recovering industry, was called “catastrophic” by business groups, who said it would have a knock-on effect on inflation and hurt businesses leading the charge of the pandemic recovery.
The Chancellor’s spring statement announced that fuel duty, which according to Conservative backbenchers such as John Redwood, was well overdue a cut after a decade being frozen, was to be cut.
It saw the rate cut on petrol and diesel by 5 pence per litre across the whole of the UK (though VAT remains payable at 20 per cent).
This rate cut did not extend to that of household fuel bills, which Mr Johnson had previously argued was a Brexit “dividend” he wished to explore.
On further levies on food, despite Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy recommending a £3/kg tax on sugar and a £6/kg tax on salt in processed foods, the proposals were binned.
If the Torygraph has turned against Johnson then it really is the end for him.
well of course he wouldn’t be able to cut taxes due to the massive costs created by COVID – it cost a fortune to furlough people, and the alternative was not having lock-down or massive financial hit on redundant workers.The Telegraph is just an old-style, cut taxes, cut spending, scrap expensive projects, dole out more money to the rich – that’s what would replace Boris Johnson, not some sort of utopia – unless you see old-style tories as utopia of course
Anyone who wants to cut tax needs to say what area of public spending they want cut to pay for it. After 12 years of austerity are there really any areas that haven’t already been cut to the bone? The tax system could certainly be changed to put less burden on low and middle earners, and more on those who can afford to pay it. But I don’t see the Tories doing that.
[An archived link to the article](https://archive.ph/zIsFq)