Chancellor to freeze council tax?
Monday 21st June 2010, 9:49AM BST.
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Council tax is to be frozen for a year under plans to be outlined in Chancellor George Osborne’s emergency Budget tomorrow.
The move is expected to sugar a bitter pill of spending cuts, tax rises and benefit cuts as the chancellor fights to drag Britain out of the red.
The coalition Government’s first Budget is being hailed as the toughest for a generation.
It is expected to include an increase in VAT, from 17.5 per cent to as much as 20 per cent; plans to strip the middle classes of tax credits; a freeze in most benefits to get more people back to work; a rise in capital gains tax and increases in fuel, alcohol and tobacco taxes.
Mr Osborne has promised to spread the burden of his four-year plan to tackle the £155bn deficit, inherited from Labour, fairly across all sections of society.
But he is facing a growing backlash from business leaders, children’s charities and unions – who have threatened strike action – against the planned tax rises, pay freezes and spending cuts.
Former Chancellor Alistair Darling accused the Conservatives of “using this crisis to do what they wanted to do anyway.”
He said the cuts would plunge Britain back into recession, raising unemployment and stifling growth.
But Mr Osborne warned Britain was “on the road to ruin” without “determined and concerted action”
“We have inherited a truly awful financial situation. Unless we take the determined and concerted action to deal with that then I am afraid we will find our country on the road to ruin.
“We will find higher interest rates, businesses going bust, unemployment rising and our living standards declining.”
By London Reporter Sunita Patel
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closing the uk’s doors to immigrants would be a good start,so what money’s earnt in uk gets spent in the uk.
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Pointless gesture
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I have to agree with Gary there a lot of imigrants here who need to go back home so we can make this country great again.
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