UK to cut top income tax rate to 45 pct

[WestVirginiaRebel]

AP:

LONDON (AP) -- Britain's finance minister has cut the rate of income tax for the country's wealthiest citizens but imposed a raft of measures to prevent tax avoidance and a hefty new charge on expensive property sales in an attempt to spread the burden of austerity across the U.K's taxpayers.

In his annual budget statement Wednesday, George Osborne said he was cutting the top rate from 50 percent to 45 percent by April next year on incomes over 150,000 pounds ($239,000) a year. He argued that the original higher rate did not yield as much as expected, partly because the rich were able to avoid the tax.

Osborne sought to deflect criticism that the coalition government was being soft on the wealthy by announcing a big hike in the level at which Britons start paying tax, to 9,205 pounds ($14,500). There are doubts, however, whether the poorest will reap the full reward, given they may lose some benefits.

One group that appears disappointed by changes announced Wednesday were retired people. Age UK, the country's leading lobby group for pensioners, criticized Osborne's plan to scrap the age-related tax allowance, saying it would "affect those with modest pensions and savings for their retirement." Documents published alongside the budget indicate that the Treasury may reap a windfall of around 3.3 billion pounds from the changes to the tax allowances to pensioners.

The 50 percent tax rate was introduced by the previous Labour government as part of austerity measures introduced in the wake of the banking crisis that led to the country's deepest recession since World War II.

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This is the model that Obama wants to emulate...

[Valin]

Class warfare!