Chancellor Rachel Reeves visited the US and Canada last week, and during an interview with Bloomberg was asked whether she was considering increasing capital gains tax.
She replied: “We’ve got a budget on October 30 and we will set out our policy then, but it’s always important when you’re deciding tax policy to strike the right balance. Of course, you need to bring in the revenue to fund public services, but we’ve also got to grow the economy. I won’t do anything that makes it harder to achieve that economic growth and prosperity.”
The Chancellor has ruled out raising VAT, income tax rates or National Insurance rates, but this has added speculation on whether other taxes will be increased.
Last year, Ms Reeves told the BBC that she had no plans to increase capital gains tax. However, since the Labour party came into office, she has claimed that there is a £22 billion shortfall in public finances this year. She has identified some savings, but it seems likely that the gap will also be plugged by raising taxes somewhere.
In addition to changing the rates of capital gains tax, the government could also remove some reliefs to increase their tax take.
Whether there will be any changes to capital gains tax, and what they might be, is difficult to predict, but it may be telling that Ms Reeves refused to rule it out.
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