Sunday Telegraph, February 18
The Government is finally facing an orchestrated and coordinated challenge to its economic agenda: the leaders of six major Tory backbench groups have written a letter urging Rishi Sunak to drop his plan to hike corporation tax from 19 to 25 per cent. Their intervention is timely and correct.
Britain needs a radical growth drive to launch our way out of the cost of living crisis, restore our competitive edge and level-up the country. Keeping taxes as low as possible, allied with post-EU deregulation, is critical to that mission – and Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, used to agree.
When he ran for Tory leader in 2019, Mr Hunt pledged to cut the corporate rate to 12.5 per cent. By the time he had a second shot at the job, in 2022, he had mellowed a bit: the target now was 15 per cent. Today, unfortunately, he appears determined to squeeze the most productive parts of our economy – from bakeries to pharmaceutical giants – till the pips squeak.
Even if the Conservative high command is no longer sold on personal tax cuts, punishing business in the midst of a bad economic climate is sadistic and short-sighted. Employers are being hit by inflation-prone costs – particularly energy and wages – and the super-deduction, introduced to encourage investment, is scheduled to end at the same time as the corporate rate goes up. According to the CBI, Britain will overnight fall from having the fifth most competitive tax system for capital investment in the OECD to the 30th (out of 38).
Click here to read the piece in full.
Click here to read the letter to the PM.