Number crunching (the bastards are lying to us).
The Office for Budget Responsibility is an institution that George Osborne founded. Its purpose is to publish reports claiming that everyone would be better off if the rich were richer, and pretend to be independent from politics (which it isn’t). It produced loads of graphs that claimed that the tax revenue ‘sweet spot’ was 48%.
More than that, and it’s worth their while for rich people to hire accountants to hide their money, meaning falling revenues. Less than that, and rich people don’t bother so much with tax dodging - but pay less actual tax.
The actual tax rate we got in the 2012 budget? 45%.
Never mind the point that there’s a big question over the legitimacy of the vast amount of wealth hoarded by a tiny minority in a country where disabled people are committing suicide to escape poverty before we ask how much tax they should pay on that hoard. Here we have proof, if proof were needed, that the coalition does not give a flying fuck about austerity. They want to make the rich richer. Simple as that.
