Starmer Forced to Play Down Capital Gains Tax Concerns as Panicked Investors Sell Up
The Guardian reported last week that the Treasury was toying with hiking Capital Gains Tax to anywhere from 30% to 39%. Triggering rampant speculation with no tangible firefighting effort from the government…
Wealth advisers have reported a sharp spike in the number of business owners looking to sell up and leave the UK ahead of a CGT raid at the budget. A quarter of firms polled by wealth mangers Evelyn Partners said they were fast-tracking their share offloads in response to a possible tax hike, while directors at UK-listed copmanies have sold off £440 million of shares since Labour came to power. Over double the value of disposals in the previous six months…
Only now Starmer is attempting to calm flighty investors by telling Bloomberg’s Stephanie Flanders that the 39% figure is “getting wide of the mark.” Funnily enough he broke his usual no-comment-on-the-budget policy to assuage those concerns over capital gains before immediately swerving a question on whether he’d hike Employer National Insurance. Curious…
It is widely known that, according to the government’s own modelling, a 10% hike in CGT rates would actually cost Treasury coffers £2 billion in a couple of years. When CGT rates were hiked by 10% in 1988, revenues had dropped by more than a half three years later. No wonder investors are fleeing…
