My taxes keep going up, but what have we got to show for it?

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Value for Money and Lower Taxes

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A strong economy is the foundation for everything we do. It provides higher living standards so that people can look to the future with optimism. It creates the jobs we all depend on – enabling families to build their financial independence. It should guarantee our pensions in old age. It provides a safety net for the least fortunate. It is essential in tackling poverty, including child poverty. It pays for our public services – our children’s education and our parents’ healthcare. And it allows us to invest in our nation’s security – defence, the police and border controls.

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Our economic success over generations has been built on the hard work, enterprise and creativity of the British people.

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Today, government is spending too much, wasting too much and taxing
too much. Britain cannot continue indefinitely to spend more than she
is earning without higher taxes or higher interest rates – either of which
will harm our economic prospects. If we are to secure our future
prosperity, government must once again start to live within its means.

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The consequences of Labour’s profligacy are now plain to see. Last
year, average living standards fell for the first time in over a decade –
and the poorest 10 per cent of Britons became poorer.

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We need to change direction.

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The way in which a government allocates taxpayers’ money
demonstrates its values. By going to war on waste and ending ineffective
public spending programmes, we will achieve three simple aims.

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First, we will give taxpayers value for money. We will spend the same
as Labour would on the NHS, schools, transport and international
development, and more than Labour on police, defence and
pensions. But we will save £12 billion a year by 2007-8 by cutting back
other expenditure. We will freeze civil service recruitment, remove
235,000 bureaucratic posts, and cut or abolish 168 public bodies.

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Over the period to 2011-12, we will increase government spending
by 4 per cent a year, compared to Labour’s plans (on current trends)
to increase spending by 5 per cent a year.

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Second, we will avoid further Labour stealth taxes by reducing government borrowing. Of our £12 billion savings, we will use £8 billion to reduce Labour’s excessive borrowing, so that we can avoid the tax rises that would otherwise be needed.

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Third, we will lower taxes. We believe that people should choose how
their money is spent. They should be rewarded for their hard work
and be given peace of mind in old age. We will use the remaining £4
billion of our £12 billion savings to cut taxes in our first Budget.

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Lower taxes promote enterprise and growth. But they also promote
the right values. Hard-working families have suffered from Labour’s
tax raids on mortgages and marriage, pensions and petrol, buying a
home and having a job.

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People who work hard, pay their taxes and do the right thing should be rewarded, not punished

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We will change direction. Whereas Labour want to make people more
dependent on the State, we believe that lower taxes help families
build their financial independence and security. For those on low
incomes we will retain the minimum wage, together with proposed
increases.

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After a lifetime of paying taxes, we believe people deserve dignity in
retirement. Rising council tax bills, which are up by 76 per cent since
Labour came to power, have hit pensioners particularly hard. That is
why our tax plans include halving council tax bills for millions of
pensioners. Our new, permanent discount, reducing council tax bills
by up to £500 for households where all residents are over 65 will be
fully funded by central government.

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A Conservative Government will increase the basic state pension in line with earnings rather than prices, reversing the spread of meanstesting. Over four years, this will increase the value of the pension by around £7 a week for single pensioners and £11 a week for couples – on top of increases in line with inflation. We will also keep all the other benefits that pensioners currently receive, including the Winter Fuel Payment, free television licences for the over-75s, and this year’s one-off £200 council tax payment.

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The financial security of pensioners tomorrow will be vastly improved by encouraging more saving today. To get more people into the saving habit, we will create a new Lifetime Savings Account in which government contributions top up the money that people save themselves. And we will take a series of steps to strengthen company pensions. We will abolish the rules that stop firms promoting pension schemes to their staff, encouraging employers to make pension schemes ‘opt-out’ rather than ‘opt-in’. We will also use the unclaimed assets of banks and other financial institutions to replenish the pension funds of people who lose out when a scheme fails.

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The best guarantee of future prosperity is a dynamic economy. The growth of China, India and other Asian economies poses a direct challenge to our future competitiveness. New technology and the speed of global capital flows punish the inflexible and the sluggish. We need to reward risk-taking and innovation so that Britain becomes the best place in the world to start and grow a business.

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As well as keeping taxes low, we must reduce the burdens on business through deregulation.

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A Conservative Government will negotiate to restore our opt-out from the European Social Chapter and liberate small businesses from jobdestroying employment legislation.

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We will set regulatory budgets for each department, capping and then cutting the cost of the regulations that they can introduce in any one year. All new regulation will have to have benefits exceeding costs, and regulations will be given ‘Sunset Reviews’ to check that this remains the case. A Conservative Government will end the elaboration or ‘goldplating’ of EU directives.

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A Conservative Government will lock in economic stability. We will maintain the independence of the Bank of England in setting interest rates. We will not join the Euro. By keeping the pound as our currency, control of our interest rates will continue to be set to meet the needs of the British economy. As the other major parties are committed to joining the euro, only the Conservatives can make this pledge.

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Lower Taxes

  • Value for money
  • A lower tax economy
  • Support for saving, dignity for pensioners
  • Less regulation
  • A stable economy with low interest rates

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