Conservative ministers are preparing tax breaks for married couples in the next budget, according to a report in the Telegraph. It is thought that this transferable tax allowance will please Tory MPs but create further tension with Liberal Democrats in the Coalition.
The measure will allow married stay-at-home partners to transfer part of their tax-free allowance to a working spouse.
Senior Tories have said married tax breaks – which could save a couple around £150 per year – will probably be instituted in the 2013 Budget. Several cabinet ministers have backed the acceleration of this long-awaited and controversial move and suggested it will go ahead next year.
Chancellor George Osborne said:
“We will do this – the likeliest option is in the Budget”.
It is thought that speeding up the introduction of tax breaks for married couples will placate right-wingers who oppose the Conservative fast-tracking of gay marriage legislation.
This tax break was in the Tory manifesto at the time of the last election and cited in the Coalition Agreement. However, this document also gave the Liberal Democrats the right to abstain from any Commons vote on it and
Liberal Democrat resistance is likely.
Last December Nick Clegg said:
“We should not take a particular version of the family institution, such as the 1950s model of suit-wearing, breadwinning dad and aproned, homemaking mother, and try and preserve it in aspic.”
Mr Clegg added:
“We can all agree that strong relationships between parents are important, but not agree that the state should use the tax system to encourage a particular family form”.
Some Tory ministers, on the other hand, are keen to introduce the tax breaks. Fifteen wrote a letter to The Telegraph earlier this month, calling on the Prime Minister to ensure that tax breaks are included in the next Budget. Cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling and Owen Paterson openly support the letter.
Is not going to happen as the Tories don’t have the numbers.
Also they need to stop appealing to the grey vote (which they have) and find new voters, who are younger, and this isn’t going to do that.
That is that if they do this they alienate 50% of the electorate straight away, I think you get the point though.
Most people are not married. Westminster bubble again in that most conservatives are doesn’t mean the rest of us are, or went to fee paying schools, ffs. A shame as I wish there was a viable right wing party, increasingly this is not the tory party. UKIP and BNP and Independents and other specialist causes and the drift of labour to the right leaves them scratching around to find policies which are vote winners. This isn’t it. A referendum on Europe would do it or bringing back hanging (which I disagree with) would also, my point is they need to touch a nerve with the electorate and this isn’t it. Abolishing the CSA would do it for me or building more council houses perhaps, as one nation conservatives, something which matters more than this please.
As an aside Marilyn, I wish you had the ability to edit posts after you make them, would save me a lot of time and space and worries on here, the ffs comment is my Harry Enfield joke and akin to nrps = scum black humour, but I do mean the point in that politicians and political parties need to get out of the westminster bubble. Regards.
HI James
Just let me know.
Marilyn