Wednesday October 10, 09:05 AM
UK's Darling dismisses 'smash and grab' claims
LONDON (Thomson Financial) - UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling denied widespread accusations that he had launched a smash and grab raid on Conservative Party tax policies in his pre-budget report yesterday.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Darling said that he was considering raising the inheritance tax thresholds for married couples as soon as he became Chancellor in June and denying that it was a knee-jerk response to Conservative proposals last week.
Darling insisted that his pledge to double the inheritance tax threshold for married couples to 600,000 stg is affordable at a total cost of 1.3 bln, and argued that the Conservative proposals to raise the threshold to 1 mln stg are not, since it is 'not possible' to find 3.5 bln stg worth of revenues from non-domicile residents.
Earlier, his opposite in the Conservative Party, George Osborne, accused Darling and Prime Minister Gordon Brown of stealing his policies.
The public, he said, will see Brown as a 'calculating' politician, not a conviction one, drowning in 'cynicism'.
The Chancellor also denied that his introduction of a new single capital gains tax rate of 18 pct is bad for business overall, although he accepted that there are winners and losers.
The main losers identified by business lobby groups are small firms who will be paying 80 pct more tax, as the rate is rising from 10 pct to 18 pct.
'I wanted to simplify it....it's pretty competitive around the world,' he said.
'One of business's main gripes has been the complexity of the system,' he added.
Darling also said that public finances will improve over the coming years although he accepted that the turmoil in financial markets will hit economic growth and lead to more borrowing next year.
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