Corinne Lindsey, Green

Green PPC (Newton Abbot),

Corinne Lindsey's reply

"Dear Team at Fairer Tax Campaign,

Thank you for your email. I would like to reply to your three questions by dealing with them together and by showing you the Green Party postion on tax taken from our manifesto. You can see the manifesto in full at":

http://www.greenparty.org.uk/policies.html

Taxes to reduce Inequality

"We support a special tax on bankers’ bonuses,

though we would make it permanent.

Also, no one in one of the wholly or partly

state-owned banks should get a bonus of

more than £25,000. And our changes to

pension tax reliefs (see box on page 13) will

radically reduce the huge advantages the

present pension system gives to the most

wealthy. But this is only a beginning.

We would also:

• Introduce the new higher rate of income

tax at 50% for incomes above £100,000,

raising £2.3bn pa.

• Abolish the upper limit for National

Insurance contributions, raising £9.1bn

in 2010.

• Help lower earners by raising the lower

National Insurance limit to the personal

allowance rate (which is £6,475 a year,

or £124.52 a week), costing £3.9bn.

• Help lower earners by reintroducing the

10% tax band and the 22p basic rate,

costing £14.9bn.

• Increase the main rate of Corporation Tax

from 28% back to 30% and reduce the small

firms rate back to 20%, altogether raising

£1.4bn.

• Raise the Capital Gains Tax rate from 18%

to the recipient’s highest income tax rate

(that is 22%, 40% or 50%), raising £1bn.

• Reform inheritance tax, so that the level

of taxation depends on the wealth of the

recipient rather than that of the deceased,

raising £3bn by 2013. This will encourage

people to distribute their property widely.

• Crack down on tax havens and other

methods of tax evasion and avoidance, raising

£10bn in 2010 rising to £13bn by 2013.

In particular press for a transparent international

accounting standard that requires

companies to report on a country-by-country

basis so that their profits can be located

and taxed.

• Reform Council Tax by making people in

more expensive houses pay more and those

in smaller ones less, adding an additional

band at the top for the biggest houses,

raising £1.7bn. In the long run we favour

moving to a system of Land Value Tax, where

the level of taxation depends on the rental

value of the land concerned".

"We agree that tax needs to be reformed in order to produce greater equality".

Corinne Lindsey