Treasury refuses to confirm Clegg’s £10k tax threshold pledge

The Treasury today refused to confirm Nick Clegg's announcement in yesterday's Sun - that he would raise the tax threshold to £10,000 - as government policy.

The Treasury today refused to confirm a policy announced by Nick Clegg in yesterday’s Sun – that “no basic rate taxpayer will pay any tax on the first £10,000 they earn” – as government policy, with the press office seemingly unaware of the article.

The deputy prime minister wrote:

“Now more than ever, politicians have to be clear who they are standing up for. Be in no doubt, I am clear about who that is. That is why the Liberal Democrats made a promise to voters on the front of our manifesto.

“That no basic rate taxpayer will pay any tax on the first £10,000 they earn.

“We’ve already taken the first steps which will take nearly 900,000 out of paying tax altogether.

“From April, every single taxpayer earning less than £42,500 a year will see their income tax bill cut by £200. By the time of the next election, 23million people will be paying £700 less.”

The same £10k claim was also made on the Today programme earlier this week. The Lib Dem leader said:

“…we are going to put £200 back in the pocket of ever ysingle basic rate taxpayer from April 5th onwards and by the end of this Parliament it will be £700 as we move towards this central pledge of making sure that no one pays any income tax on the first £10,000 they earn.”

Yet a spokesperson for the Treasury told Left Foot Forward:

“I’m unaware of the Sun article and I’m unaware of these plans. We’ll get back to you.”

They never did. The cost of 23,000,000 people paying £700 less by 2015 (which he says will happen in his Sun article) is £16.1 billion. The cost of the first instalment (raising the threshold to £7,500 by 2014/15) is £3.91bn. This leaves a total additional cost of £12.2bn.

26 Responses to “Treasury refuses to confirm Clegg’s £10k tax threshold pledge”

  1. Tom Rouse

    RT @leftfootfwd: Treasury refuses to confirm Clegg's £10k tax threshold pledge: http://bit.ly/hfM8a8 reports @ShamikDas

  2. GMT

    RT @leftfootfwd: Treasury refuses to confirm Clegg's £10k tax threshold pledge: http://bit.ly/hfM8a8 reports @ShamikDas

  3. John

    Bit of a non-story no? This ‘pledge’ has been public knowledge since May of last year. It’s not like it’s suddenly being created.

  4. Brummie Protestor

    RT @leftfootfwd: Treasury refuses to confirm Clegg's £10k tax threshold pledge: http://bit.ly/hfM8a8 reports @ShamikDas

  5. Richard

    “We will stop the top-down reorganisations of the NHS” – Coalition agreement.

    Not worth the paper it is written on.

    The Treasury did confirm to Faisal Islam on Monday that only the first £200 had been costed in the public finances.

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