Hague cites IR35 as backdoor announcement
Conservative leader William Hague cited IR35 as an example of tax raising announcements by the back door, in a keynote speech where he outlined the morality of a low tax system
In a keynote speech (March 14) about the morality of low taxation, Conservative leader, William Hague, used the example of IR35 as a measure which is sneaked out after the Budget speech.
Mr Hague said: "I know that Gordon Brown's speech itself will not be a true statement of the Budget. All previous Chancellors, Conservative and Labour, used to present to the House of Commons a pretty honest account of which taxes were going up and which taxes were going down, and then tried to put the best gloss on it. Not this Chancellor. He regards his speech as simply the official 'leak' of the Budget - the last in a long string of deliberate leaks, all of which are designed to conceal its real contents from the voting public.
"We have all learnt over the last three years that the real Budget is hidden in the pack of Treasury documents that are slipped out after Gordon Brown has left the TV studios and the newspapers have written the next day's headlines.
"In his 1998 Budget Speech 'a new instalment system of payment for larger companies' corporation tax' turned out to be a £2,000 million stealth tax on businesses.
"In his Budget Speech last year, 'aligning national insurance arrangements for the self-employed closer to employees' was later discovered to be a £240 million stealth tax increase on self-employment.
"The new and devastating stealth tax on high tech contractors is known only as IR35 because it appeared in the fine print of Inland Revenue Press Release number 35 and was not mentioned in the Budget at all.
"And the most striking example of all. The biggest tax change of this Government, a £5 billion pounds a year tax on pension funds, was described in 1997 as 'making other tax changes to encourage companies to invest profits in the future'.
No wonder the whole argument in this country about tax has become confused and debased."
Mr Hague argued that punitive tax measures encourage law-abiding citizens to break the law. He said: "We need to re-establish the moral case for low taxes. We must show how this Government's stealth taxes are the enemy not the friend of all that binds society together.
"We must show how this Government's stealth taxes are the enemy not the friend of social provision and decent public services. And we must show that it is our Conservative low tax agenda that is not just the basis of a dynamic economy but also the foundation of a moral, compassionate, free and just society."