Robert Jenrick (Image: Jonathan Buckmasterr)
Reform UK’s flagship policy to cut the tax-free personal allowance to £15,000 is a game changer for Express readers.
That will be worth around £1,000 a year to an average working couple. And crucially it will ensure that the State Pension itself is not taxed.
That means every penny of the first £15,000 you earn will be tax-free. It will also immediately take 2.9 million people out of paying income tax altogether – many of whom are pensioners, who make ends meet on just a bit more than the State Pension.
This will be the single-biggest increase in the tax-free personal allowance. Ever. Because Reform is the party for workers and those who have worked their whole lives.
And I will do all of this in my first Budget, in the first 100 days of a Reform government. And once I can, and only when it is paid for in full, I will keep going further until we’ve reached Reform’s ambition of a £20,000 tax free allowance.
It’s shameful that the Tories and Labour froze the personal allowance. On current trends, as the State Pension grows and the threshold is frozen, the State Pension will be taxed from next year for the first time ever.
That would be an outrageous violation of trust. Pensioners who are receiving only the basic level of support, after a lifetime of contributions, should not then have that support shrunk in order to pay for the state’s largesse.
Andy Burnham says he will fix this problem. But there are no details. And at best it will be a sticking-plaster. Yet another fudge in the tax system. The Tories have no plan to fix it either.
Reform will strike a new deal with the British people. We will reform welfare, scrap most foreign aid, and sack useless civil servants.
We will save £80 billion by the fifth year of our government. And that is why we can cut taxes for workers and pensioners who have worked their entire life.
That is the only fair solution. It keeps the state pension out of taxation for the foreseeable future. And it will ensure that work pays for British workers.
Only Reform can do this because we will confront the problems that previous governments have been unwilling to confront. I know things are tough right now but hold tight because help is on the way.