Stores are offering discounts of 20% plus already.
If that doesn't tempt people in, how will another 2% make a difference?
And it won't help the really hard-pressed that much because food (with exceptions) isn't subject to VAT anyway.
If the govt wants to support the high street, might the money not have been better targeted if they'd decided to hand it to retailers as some form of business rates rebate?
But I guess that wouldn't have allowed for political posturing over which party cares more about "hard-working families".
Darling to raise taxes for wealthy Alistair Darling, chancellor, is to target the wealthy with a new top rate of tax to help pay down soaring government borrowing, as he prepares to unveil a £12.5bn VAT cut to encourage Britain to shop its way out of recession. Mr Darling will announce plans for a new 45p top tax rate to be set at about £150,000 a year, to be introduced after the next election. He accepts that a tight squeeze on public spending alone will not plug the hole in the government's finances. Although the new tax would only raise several billion pounds a year, it breaches a central "new Labour" tenet of not putting up income tax or penalising the wealthy. It also opens up potentially sharp dividing lines between Labour and the Tories at the next general election. David Cameron, Tory leader, now faces a difficult choice of whether or not to support the mooted tax rise.
Alistair Darling, chancellor, is to target the wealthy with a new top rate of tax to help pay down soaring government borrowing, as he prepares to unveil a £12.5bn VAT cut to encourage Britain to shop its way out of recession.
Mr Darling will announce plans for a new 45p top tax rate to be set at about £150,000 a year, to be introduced after the next election. He accepts that a tight squeeze on public spending alone will not plug the hole in the government's finances.
Although the new tax would only raise several billion pounds a year, it breaches a central "new Labour" tenet of not putting up income tax or penalising the wealthy. It also opens up potentially sharp dividing lines between Labour and the Tories at the next general election. David Cameron, Tory leader, now faces a difficult choice of whether or not to support the mooted tax rise.
Politicians live in another world really. keep to the Fen Causeway
At a time of weaker demand, it is likely to be fully passed on to consumers, so it is a boost to wage earners in the from of price reductions. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
