23-05-2025
Labour-supporting tax expert slams Rayner's raid on taxpayers
A Labour-supporting tax campaigner has slammed Angela Rayner's proposals to reintroduce the lifetime allowance and freeze the top rate of tax threshold.
The influential tax expert Dan Neidle said a number of the tax rises contained in Ms Rayner's leaked memo could deter investment in UK companies and undermine 'the progressivity of the tax system'.
He also questioned whether some of the proposals could raise as much as the Deputy Prime Minister had suggested.
The Telegraph revealed on Tuesday that Ms Rayner sent a secret memo urging Rachel Reeves to raise taxes instead of cutting spending.
Mr Neidle is the founder of think tank Tax Policy Associates and also a member of Labour, however he has been critical of the party's policies in the past.
The tax lawyer said that half of Ms Rayner's proposals 'make sense from a policy perspective', including closing the commercial property stamp duty loophole and removing inheritance tax relief on Aim shares.
However he poked holes in some of the calculations on her memo. For example, he told The Telegraph that closing the stamp duty loophole for commercial property could raise anywhere between £700m or £2bn, as opposed to the estimate of £1bn cited in Ms Rayner's memo.
