17 hours ago
Reeves plots Budget tax raid on dividends
Rachel Reeves is drawing up plans for a tax raid on dividends in her autumn Budget in a hunt to find tens of billions in revenue.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer's officials are understood to have drawn up a menu of tax increases, including a raid on dividends suggested by Angela Rayner in a leaked memo.
Officials are considering abolishing the £500 tax-free allowance for dividend payments, or increasing the rate of tax from its current level of 39 per cent.
Removing the allowance could raise the Treasury more than £300 million and may allow the Chancellor to claim she has not increased taxes on 'working people', a Labour pledge before last year's general election.
But the Conservatives said the rise would amount to Ms Reeves 'putting her hands in the pockets of British taxpayers and businesses'.
The so-called 'dossier' of tax changes, first reported by The Sunday Times, was not denied by senior government officials last night.
It included an increase on the levy on bank profits, which is charged on top of the normal corporation tax rate of 25 per cent.
