Lord Haskel
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Income Tax: Top Rate
Lord Haskel Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Newby
No, my Lords, it simply is not true that the sole purpose of tax is to bring in revenue. Obviously every tax does bring in revenue, but some tax is introduced in order to affect behaviour. We are about to have a plastic bag tax but I do not think that the primary purpose of that tax is to bring in money.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
My Lords, the top 1% pays more tax. Is that because their income has gone up?
Lord Newby
It is partly because their income has gone up, but proportionately it is because they are prepared to pay the tax. As noble Lords opposite know, and as the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, has just demonstrated, when you get to very high levels of tax and very wealthy people, whether they pay it or not is not simply a question of whether they get a demand from HMRC.