Taxation: Capital Gains Tax Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Taxation: Capital Gains Tax

Baroness Kramer Excerpts
Tuesday 7th July 2015

(8 years, 10 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Bridges of Headley Portrait Lord Bridges of Headley
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My Lords, as your Lordships will know, during the last Parliament this Government took a number of steps to tackle avoidance and evasion. Indeed, they were relentless in their crackdown on tax avoidance. HMRC will have secured £100 billion in compliance yield. This includes more than £31 billion from big business and £1.2 billion extra from the UK’s richest people.

Baroness Kramer Portrait Baroness Kramer (LD)
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May I press the Minister? If the Government are seeking to provide support to working people, will it not be appropriate to begin to align capital gains tax rates with income tax rates, especially for these large, short-term capital gains?

Lord Bridges of Headley Portrait Lord Bridges of Headley
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The noble Baroness makes an interesting point. As noble Lords know, this Government are intent on helping working people. Last year, we cut income tax for more than 26 million people, took more than 3 million out of income tax altogether and created more than 1,000 jobs every single day. This Government intend to do better still.