Hey, at least we all got a tax break (and penalties in other essential places)!

You've got to admire the PR though.

Ozzie reduces the 50p rate to 45p to make it more attractive to rich people.
At the same time he moves loads of standard rate tax payers up into the 40p bracket.

And the LibDems are crowing about taking millions out of tax altogether, which would be great except they are conveniently forgetting the 20% VAT that poor and rich alike are paying nowadays.
The LibDems giveth and Gideon taketh away?
Nah, Sounds ike the LibDems are happy with regressive taxation.

How does HMRC deal with those pensioners who currently have income in excess of their personal allowances, but no sources of PAYE income through which to collect tax?

If the answer is that they ask them to complete a tax return every year, that group is going to grow exponentially as the age-related allowances disappear.

If you have a state pension of over £155 per week from 6 April 2012, you're going to have to pay some tax on it.

Come the next election any politician worth his salt will be able to pretty much destroy the Lib Dems. They're making a good job of it themselves so a nudge should have them over the cliff quite easily. Cameron will have the knives out with about a year to go too, and the coalition will limp along until election time.

I've said before those LDs in the cabinet and ministerial posts are loving the trappings and the limos too much to control the Tory excesses. They have the balance of power FFS and could have stopped a lot of the legislation that traditional Lib Dems don't support. Clegg has let his party down big style.

Clegg doesn't give a flying one about his party, or the values of its core support.

He'll be contesting a nice safe seat somewhere for the Tories at the next general election - being LD leader has given him an "in" to cosy up to Dave, that's all he needed.

You could be right but I just see it as one public schoolboy deferring to another from the "better" school.

As do Private Eye..

rlMore people will pay more taxrl.

Isn't it strange that IIRC he failed to mention that and that he failed to mention the true facts about pensioners being worse off when he was giving his budget speech.
Anyone would think he didn't want to highlight it eh!!

He has gone on record saying that he doesn't earn or have enough to pay 45% tax.
I'm hardly suprised I mean that is what offshore accounts are for surely.

Lovely statement of the bleeding obvious from the IFS about people managing their tax affairs in such a way as to benefit from the 45p rate, in the same way they did to mitigate the introduction of the 50p rate.

Course, lots of income that would otherwise have fallen in 2012-13 will be deferred - where possible - until 2013-14. The take from the top rate of tax will go up, despite the rate being lower, and George will tell us all what a spiffing success it has been.

Smoke and mirrors of the highest order.

Yes and I think I'd trust Hislop on the hiearchical etiquettes of those establishments.
He has the personal experience.

It ought not to be too hard to explain to Joe public that the reason why the 50p didn't raise as much as first thought was because income was taken early and equally that the 45p rate won't either because people will defer income until it drops back to 40p.

Either way the figures it actually did raise was £700m to £1bn depending on who you read.

Considering the effort and expense that goes into trying to stop a mere £60m of benefit fraud the 50p tax rate looks a highly efficient way to generate revenue for the government!

rlOsborne's 50p "Dodgy Dossier" in layman's termsrl

What makes you think it can?