Jeremy Hunt warned Britons they are ‘all going to be paying a bit more tax’ after Thursday as he tries to rescue to the economy.
The Chancellor continued to roll the pitch for Thursday’s Autumn Statement which is expected to hammer families and cut public spending.
It came after he warned he will take’ horrible’ decisions this week, and branded himself as a ‘Scrooge’ trying to save family Christmases.
The Chancellor warned that Thursday’s Autumn Statement would be a ‘rabbit-free budget’ containing no sugar to coat the bitter taste of his fiscal medicine to cure a £60billion hole in the economy.
He is expected to reveal a raft of unpopular measures that will hit families across the UK, including freezing income tax thresholds until 2028, a move some have claimed is a ‘stealth tax’ because wage inflation will drag many more people into higher rate bands.
Asked on Sky News’ Ridge on Sunday if he would be paying more tax as a high earner, he replied: ‘We are all going to be paying a bit more tax, I’m afraid … but it’s not just going to be bad news.
‘I think what people recognise is that if you want to give people confidence about the future, you have to be honest about the present. And you have to have a plan.
‘This will be a plan to help bring down inflation, help control high energy prices and also get our way back to growing healthily, which is what we need so much.’
Asked if there would be a return to austerity he said there are going to be ‘very difficult decisions’.
But he also hinted that NHS funding could be safe from cross-government cuts. He said the under-pressure health service was ‘part of the solution’ to getting the economy back to growth by reducing the number of people off on long-term sick leave.
But Mr Hunt was today warned that he faces a Tory backbench revolt like that seen in 2012 over the ‘pasty tax’ when he tries to get his tax rises and spending cuts through Parliament.
One told the Telegraph: ‘If I shut my eyes I don’t see any difference between Hunt, [Sir Keir] Starmer, Sunak and [Rachel] Reeves, frankly.’
And Simon Clarke, who was a cabinet minister under Liz Truss, said he should concentrate on spending cuts because taxes were already high enough.
The UK economy shrank by 0.2 per cent in the second quarter of the year, according to the ONS
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is on the hunt for tax as the 45p tax rate set to kick in from earners making £125,000
PM Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are in the process of finalising plans for the Budget amid rising inflation
Mr Clarke told Sky: ‘It’s absolutely right we balance the books.
‘I would urge Jeremy to make sure we do as much as we can from spending reductions as opposed to tax increases, noting tax is at a very high level and faced with the recession risk.’
He added that he still supported Ms Truss’ pro-growth agenda but said he believed she had been going to release a spending review at the same time as her mini-budget, and it was his ‘lasting regret’ that she had not done so.
Mr Hunt had earlier said he would focus on delivering ‘certainty’ to families and businesses in the wake of the market turmoil sparked by his predecessor’s £45 billion tax-cutting bonanza.
Mr Hunt has abandoned plans to reinstate Labour’s 50p top tax rate – but will still hammer higher earners by reducing the income level at which the top 45p rate kicks in from £150,000 to £125,000.
There is also expected to be a hike in the windfall tax on oil and gas giants from 25 to 35 per cent, cutting the tax-free allowance for share dividends and dropping the requirement for councils to hold a referendum on tax increases above 2.99 per cent.
Cutting the threshold for the top rate of tax, and freezing income tax thresholds for two more years until 2027/28, will raise billions of extra pounds while technically sticking to the Tories’ 2019 manifesto pledge not to increase income tax, national insurance or VAT.
The Chancellor told the Sunday Times: ‘I’m Scrooge who’s going to do things that make sure Christmas is never cancelled.
‘But I hope that people will understand that there’s going to be some very horrible decisions in order to get us back into the place where we are the fantastic country that we all want to be.’
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves called on Jeremy Hunt to make ‘fair choices’ when he reveals the autumn budget on Thursday and not to put the whole burden on ‘ordinary working people’.
She told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme that Rishi Sunak had ‘slow-pedalled’ on the windfall tax when he was chancellor.
Ms Reeves said: ‘I’ve been banging on about the windfall tax on big energy companies since the beginning of this year.
‘The Prime Minister when he was chancellor slow-pedalled on that. We still think you could raise an additional £50 billion through extending the windfall tax by two years, by backdating it to the beginning of January when those windfalls, those profits of war, started coming onto the balance sheets of the energy companies.
‘By getting rid of some of the loopholes that mean companies like Shell are not even paying any of the Government’s energy profits levy and extending it to some of the electricity generators.
‘So, there are fair choices that the Chancellor could be making this week, rather than just putting all of that burden on ordinary working people who are already struggling with the highest inflation that any of us have experienced for 40 years and now risk more of their money going in taxes, rather than having it for the weekly food shop, the higher mortgage payments and everything else that is facing people right now.’
Moving the 45p rate to incomes of £125,000 and above will raise just £1.3 billion a year but will allow Premier Rishi Sunak to ‘detoxify’ the Government in the wake of Liz Truss’s disastrous attempt to cut the top rate to 40p – one of the measures in Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget which spooked the markets and handed political ammunition to Labour.
But many Tory MPs fear that Mr Sunak is ‘over-correcting’ and jeopardising the Conservatives’ reputation as a low-tax party.
Mr Sunak and Mr Hunt met on Friday to finalise plans for the Budget, which comes after the Office for National Statistics said the UK economy shrank by 0.2 per cent in the third quarter of 2022.
Their stealth taxes will add up to £68 billion, according to think-tank the Centre for Economic and Business Research. Extending the freeze on income tax bands for an extra two years will net £52.5 billion by 2028.
It means three million more low-paid and middle-income earners will be dragged into higher tax brackets as their wages increase – because pay is rising faster due to double-digit inflation.
Earlier this year, when he was Chancellor, Mr Sunak froze the amount at which people begin paying tax at £12,570 and pegged the threshold for the 40 per cent higher rate at £50,271, where they will now remain until 2026.
Freezing inheritance tax thresholds into 2027/28 would result in an £11.8 billion stealth tax grab over the next five years. Keeping the lifetime allowance on pension savings at £1,073,100 for the next five years would net a further £3.2 billion.
Reducing the 45p threshold will drag nearly 250,000 people into paying the highest rate of income tax, costing them £580 a year, while a further 629,000 people who are already paying the 45p tax will fork out £1,250 more a year.
Bank of England data predicts that unemployment will rise markedly, seeing around 1milion more people out of work
The ONS estimate for the third quarter was not quite as bad as the Bank of England’s forecasts last week implied – although it will be subject to revision
Economists regard the measure as largely symbolic, as top earners find ways to avoid it or move abroad.
Raising windfall taxes to 35 per cent and extending them to 2028 is expected to raise £45 billion over the next five years.
Mr Hunt is also expected to outline up to £35 billion spending cuts.
Ahead of a G20 meeting of world leaders in Indonesia on Tuesday, Mr Sunak said the most powerful economies had to band together to address the global economic turmoil.
He said: ‘Putin’s war has caused devastation around the world, destroying lives and plunging the international economy into turmoil.
Household income will drop by an average of £800 from around £54,700 to around £53,900
‘This G20 summit will not be business as usual. We will call out Putin’s regime and lay bare its utter contempt for the kind of international co-operation and respect for sovereignty that forums like the G20 represent.’
Meanwhile Treasury Chief Secretary John Glen said Government could be made ‘more efficient’ by accelerating the sale of under-used buildings, particularly ‘expensive central London properties’, and ‘turbo-charging’ plans to digitise public services.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, he said: ‘To continue delivering the things people care about in the face of inflationary pressures, without making the problem worse through extra spending across the board, we have to take difficult decisions and make Government more efficient. That means rooting out waste.
‘It’s outrageous that public money – your money – is being soaked up by the system when it could be channelled towards areas that really need it.’
Insisting the British public want the Tories to be trustworthy rather than ‘popular’, Mr Hunt said the hope for the week ahead is to show the Government has a plan to stabilise the economy.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, he said the ‘tragedy’ of Trussonomics was that both the former PM and her chancellor had the right idea about boosting growth.
But he said it was a ‘mistake’ to act without showing ‘we can pay our way as a country’, adding that he will ‘put people ahead of ideology’.
The disastrous mini-budget may have cost the country as much as £30 billion, according to the Resolution Foundation, potentially doubling the task at hand for the Chancellor, as he seeks up to £60 billion in savings and extra revenue.
The think tank’s economists estimate that Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng blew £20 billion on unfunded cuts to national insurance and stamp duty, with a further £10 billion lost to higher interest rates and Government borrowing costs, The Observer reported.
Mr Hunt suggested he will not be pulling any rabbits out of the hat when he delivers his statement next week, unlike his predecessor – who dramatically whipped out a cut to the top rate of income tax in his ill-fated ‘fiscal event’.
‘I think it is fair to say this is going to be the first rabbit-free budget for very many years,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry to disappoint but no, this is not going to be a time for rabbits I’m afraid.’
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