The following letter is in the FT this morning:
Sir, Serious economists should not indulge in fact-free grandstanding.
There is no hard evidence to support the view that a temporary increase in the marginal tax rate from 40 per cent to 50 per cent on incomes above £150,000 would harm effort, entrepreneurship and growth, or that it would not raise tax revenue.
And even hard-nosed economists should have some regard for the damage to national solidarity that a reversal of the tax change is likely to cause in the current climate of austerity.
Vijay Joshi, Fellow, St John's College, Oxford, UK
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Richard, You may have mentioned this elsewhere, but I was wondering if you could explain the role of Kitty Ussher in the economists’ letter. I’m still not quite clear about that. Ian
Not surprised at all by her name appearing. Why we Labour Party members tolerate such neoliberals is beyond me.
Careful Richard. You’ll be accused of being a conspiracy theorist, as I was by a couple of people when I made my comment earlier in the week about Osborne’s real economic policy goal 🙂
By the way, Simon Jenkins’ article on this in The Guardian today is superb (and I don’t often say that) http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/08/tax-winners-trickle-up-economy