Her new gang of tax advisers have all been calling for a string of tax hikes that would target the elderly, even though the UK’s tax burden is at its highest level since the war. It’s a frightening insight into how Reeves and Labour leader Keir Starmer will govern if the party wins the election as expected.
Reeves has gathered a team of financial experts to help her modernise HMRC and the entire UK tax system if she becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer.
They all have one thing in common. A love of hiking taxes. Many of these will be targeted at the older generation, as they see pensioners as ripe for the picking.
Members of the team has been calling for pensioners to pay National Insurance on their incomes, in what would be a massive change because they are exempt today.
They have also called for inheritance tax (IHT) to be imposed on pensions when people die, something that doesn’t happen today.
In a further blow, Labour’s new team of financial gurus have made it plain that they would love to hike capital gains tax (CGT) rates too.
These are huge tax changes and all of them have been demanded by Reeves’ appointees in recent years, according to a report in The Daily Telegraph.
It’s a grim insight into how Labour could launch a huge tax raid on the elderly if it does take power.
With the party 20 points ahead in the polls, it has to be taken seriously.
Labour’s tax panel includes Sir Edward Troup, who tweets constantly demanding higher taxes and more powers for HMRC.
He recently reposted a tweet advocating pensions be liable for IHT – and celebrated a rise in IHT revenues by tweeting “Good”.
Sir Edward has also called for higher capital gains tax (CGT) rates, and fewer reliefs. Although to be fair, that is one policy Conservative Party Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has pursued himself, slashing the annual CGT exemption from £12,300 to £300 over the last two years.
After competing to cut taxes over the last few decades, the UK’s two main political parties are battling each other to see who can be most punitive.
We saw that with Hunt’s new non-doms tax. Or the income tax raid on pensioners.
Sir Edward even told the pro-Labour Resolution Foundation think tank that it was a “complete disgrace” pensioners weren’t paying National Insurance.
Chillingly, he added: “We are going to have to look at the more senior members of society” to pay more tax.
It looks like pensioners could face a targeted tax raid. Labour will hope this plays well with younger voters, who tend to favour the party.
Another Reeves appointee, Dame Margaret Hodge MP, has also called to extend National Insurance (NI) to pensioner incomes, but that wasn’t enough.
She was wants everyone to pay NI on their savings income, too.
Another Labour panel member, Bill Dodwell, issued a report during his time as head of the Office of Tax Simplification calling for CGT rates to be hiked in line with income tax.
I could go on. Other members of the team seem to be equally tax happy.
READ MORE: Starmer ‘will have to raise taxes’ if Labour wants to avoid one thing after vote
None of these suggestions are official Labour Party policy yet. We don’t know what labour tax policy will look like, because they aren’t telling us.
Although these tweets and public pronouncements do give us a terrifying insight into what Labour high-ups are thinking today.
We may never know for sure which taxes Labour will hike, until after they win the election. But Labour will definitely have to raise some taxes to pay for it ambitious spending plans at a time when the country is low on cash.
If they set out their plans in full, they would scare the voters. Many are only considering switching their vote to Labour because they despise the Tories.
They may change their minds when they see what Labour has in store for them.
