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Supertax 'hits capital four times harder than rest of UK'
Paul Waugh27.04.09
Alistair Darling's "soak the rich" Budget will hit London four times harder than the rest of the UK and leave high earners paying nearly £5billion in extra taxes, the Mayor's senior aides claim.
An analysis of Treasury figures by City Hall, released to the Evening Standard, shows the capital will pay a third of the new taxes even though it has one-eighth of Britain's population.
Greater London Authority experts found 145,000 Londoners earning more than £100,000 a year will be hit including 83,000 on more than £150,000 a year. Boris Johnson last week launched a campaign opposing the new 50p tax rate.
Yesterday, City entrepreneurs Hugh Osmond and Peter Hargreaves said they were quitting Britain over the new taxes; Osmond to Swizterland and Hargreaves to Monaco or the Isle of Man. Actor Michael Caine said he was close to leaving. Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber said the taxes were "the final nail in the coffin of Britain plc".
London's high earners are set to pay 36 per cent of the new taxes, or more than one in three of every extra pound raised. The tax will raise £332 per Londoner per year, four times as much per capita as the rest of the UK, where it is set to raise £86 per person. The new taxes would raise £4.7billion from London over the next three years, the analysis shows. The Mayor's policy director Anthony Browne said: "The assault on high earners is really an assault on London. The Government must not kill the goose that lays the golden egg."
Reader views (8)
"Only when you see these "rich" stop spending will you realise how many shop workers, restaurant staff and other leisure industry staff will be laid off as a result."
Apart from the threat from the spoiled rich, how many indigenous Brits are actually employed in these services ?
Let's get a bit of room to move in London, and take a lot of un-needed pressure off the locals.
- Cap, london
Only 4 times? Are you sure that figure is correct? Oh, sorry, I forgot all of the "consultants" working for Nu Liebour stronghold constituencies.
- Bob, Cheam
'Come On England,Open Your Eyes And Use Your Brains"
Er...England. as a political country does not actually wxist. Read your passpoet. You are a UK citicen like the resy of us.Best get used to it.
- Keith Price, Luton, England
When the rich leave, can they take their low paid servants along with them please ?
If they can find a country willing to put up with them, and offer as good a life as London UK, I'd be very surprised.
As far as their Taxes are concerned, I'll bet most of them avoid paying any right now, never mind in future !
- Cap, london
England was built and runs on 'Inequalities' what made you think London would be treated fairly? 'Come On England,Open Your Eyes And Use Your Brains,As You Have No Voices'.
- Natalie Bichard, Brixton London England
Only when you see these "rich" stop spending will you realise how many shop workers, restaurant staff and other leisure industry staff will be laid off as a result."
This sounds almpst like a threat, or at the very least arrogance. garling has got it right. Britain's tax system needs to be progressive once again
- Keith Price, Luton, England
So what is new; London is bound to get hit at last, they are the only ones rich enough.
The Tories bankrupted the Midlands and the North decades ago.
Lets not mention Wales; they got murdered long ago under Thatcher.
- Mickyinlondon, london
Only when you see these "rich" stop spending will you realise how many shop workers, restaurant staff and other leisure industry staff will be laid off as a result.
The euphoria of taxing them will be replaced by the reality of unemployment - Enjoy.
A wonderful move. Bring on the election.
- Dave Davies, Basingstoke
