Libertarian Party Press Release

The leader of the UK Libertarian Party today branded the ongoing debate in Westminster over the abolition of the 10p income tax band as "intellectual necrophilia".

"As usual, petty point-scoring by the major political parties is providing a smokescreen behind which they can hide, rather than address the genuine plight of the poor and needy in our society" said Patrick Vessey. He continued: "the issue shouldn't be where our political class decides to set the poverty and welfare traps, but why a prosperous nation like our own should seek to ensnare its citizens in this way at all."

Mr Vessey explained that "a truly progressive tax regime would be one that didn't penalise people who were simply working to better themselves and the lot of their family. The only fair tax system would be one based upon a genuine ability to pay—and that means raising tax revenue from the sales of non-essential goods. Nobody should be forced to hand over their earnings to the state, and simply receive a 'living allowance' in return, and nobody should be forced to pay tax on essential goods like fresh food. The only way to bring honesty back into the personal tax system would be to solely raise revenue via taxes on luxury items, as the Libertarian Party proposes."

The Libertarian Party propose to abolish personal income tax. They have demonstrated[3] how the UK could achieve this overnight, simply by returning to the public sector spending levels in place just six years ago—the growth in other sources of government funding (e.g. VAT receipts on consumer spending) since 2001/02 more than compensates for the loss of revenue from personal taxation that the Party is proposing.

As Mr Vessey asks "did we have people dying of plague in the streets six short years ago? Of course not—we had a perfectly adequate NHS. Whilst the Libertarian Party believes that we could do so much better, if our politicians really do care about the poor and needy in our society—and not just their votes—then they should adopt our proposals, and put an end to the poverty and welfare traps once and for all."

NOTES TO EDITORS