To all those Labour MP who are currently dithering over the abolition of the 10p rate of income tax. What the fuck happened?!?!? You've known about this since you cheered Gordon Brown's announcement in the April 2007 budget. You knew about this when you later elected him leader of the party. Now it's actually come in, is it really a surprise?

For the record, I am better off - by about £10/month (EDIT - following some calculations, I'm only actually £59/year better off, or £5/month). That is not better off enough for me to think it's worthwhile scrapping the lower tax rate. This change to income tax would have had a much bigger effect on me when I was volunteer for the CAB. I had to work part time to support myself (and I had very generous parents willing to put up with minimal board and lodgings 8-) and earned not a whole lot. I was in the 10% bracket so the sudden increase to 20% would have hurt (EDIT - following those same calculations, £16505 is the minimum amount you have to earn per year to benefit (income tax-wise) from the changes). I wouldn't have been able to benefit from the Government's Tax Credit schemes as I was childless, not working enough hours and not old enough. People like I used to be have been screwed over and labour ditherers have come to the party far too late.

But, as Toby says in the West Wing, "let's ignore the fact you've come late to the party and embrace that you've turned up at all".

EDIT - more calculations show that the median wage earner gets 0.61% added to their net wage (£12.10/month better off). The bottom 10% get at least 0.55% taken off (£6/month worse off) and the top 10% earners get 1.67% added to net (£65/month better off).For those keeping up with the maths... yes, I'm paid less than the median UK wage...

Alex
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