Taxes may rise as chancellor admits 2009 to be difficult year
Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, has admitted that 2009 will be a difficult year for the economy, as taxes will have to rise again to plug the millions that have been blown away following the economic crisis.
With public finances in such dire straits and with the budget to be announced on the 22nd of this month, there is likely to be extra tax rises as the Chancellor admitted that the Treasury had underestimated the seriousness of the recession, even though there has been an introduction of a 45p higher rate of income tax and a rise in National Insurance.
There is an expectation amongst analysts that future tax rises are being considered and that there could also be a rise in VAT.
In an interview with BBC television, Mr Darling said that he remains optimistic that the UK will be back to growth but that 2009 will be a testing year and he warned that GDP figures would be worse than last year, when the economy contracted by 1.6 percent.
The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said that the Government will be forced to borrow tens of billions more which will eventually lead to the average typical taxpayer facing an extra £500 a year as the IFS warned that the UK has had to borrow almost £20 billion more than expected as the recession was underestimated.
Visited 2322 times, 1 so far today
Comments (0)
Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed
There are no comments yet. Why not be the first to speak your mind.