Lord Myners
Main Page: Lord Myners (Crossbench - Life peer)
Lord Sassoon
As has already been pointed out, AIM has been enormously successful, with 1,250 companies listed. The money raised on AIM has helped more than 3,100 companies. Since the start of the market £67 billion has been raised at admission and through further fundraising, which includes more than £16 billion raised by 1,800 smaller UK companies. AIM has been very successful in helping the financing of the smaller and growing market.
Lord Myners
Does the Minister agree that increasing capital gains tax is more likely to decrease innovation, enterprise and job creation than improve them?
Lord Sassoon
I thank the noble Lord for his question and I was wondering when we would get some more of the candour shown in yesterday’s remarks. I know that the question of capital gains tax is of interest to many noble Lords. The coalition Government believe that the tax system needs to be reformed to make it fairer and simpler, and that is why we will increase the personal allowance for income tax to help lower and middle income earners. To fund this, we are carefully considering the various options for taxing non-business capital gains at rates closer to those applied to income while ensuring that there are generous exemptions for entrepreneurial business activities. Reforming CGT will ensure that those seeking to avoid paying income tax by converting their income into a capital gain will pay their fair share of tax. Further details on the coalition Government’s proposals will be provided at the Budget.