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Osborne’s Capital Gains Giveaway
Rich white southern money-men are Budget’s big winners, say researchers

MALE financial speculators from London and south-east England are among the biggest winners from “bankers’ Chancellor” George Osborne’s Budget, Labour researchers said yesterday.

A cut to the top rate of capital gains tax paid on assets such as shares was among a Budget stuffed with giveaways to Britain’s richest.

The cost was set to be paid by 300,000 disabled people, who were due to lose £3,500 a year from a cut to personal independence payments (PIP).

Even Tory MPs were shocked by the callousness of the cut and the Chancellor was forced into a U-turn days later to avoid the possibility of another tax credits-style defeat.

Now Labour has revealed the extent of Mr Osborne’s attempt to transfer wealth from the poorest to the richest.

Analysis of the latest Treasury data has found that 200,000 people — just 0.3 per cent of the population — will benefit from the cut to capital gains tax.

“The bankers’ Chancellor has been shown again to be looking after a wealthy minority,” said shadow chancellor John McDonnell.

“These figures show the priorities of George Osborne. He planned to fund this £3,000 giveaway to 0.3 per cent of the population by taking over £3,000 from hundreds of thousands of disabled people.”

The tax break is set to cost taxpayers £630 million in 2017-18 — £3,000 on average per person liable for capital gains tax.

But the biggest winners will be an even smaller elite of 5,000 people who trade in over £1 million worth of assets in a single year.

Another 23,000 who dispose of assets worth more than £150,000 will also see thousands more slashed from their tax bill.

The figures for 2013-14 showed that these people were already enjoying 50 per cent more gains than the previous year.

Labour’s analysis also for the first time reveals the profile of those set to bank thousands from Mr Osborne’s warped policies.

Treasury data show that 57 per cent of capital gains taxpayers are men.

They are also most likely to live in London and the Tory heartlands of the south-east of England.

Fresh from his climbdown on PIP cuts, which blew a £4 billion hole in his Budget, Mr Osborne is now under pressure to concede a second U-turn and scrap the cut in capital gains tax.

“When you consider the small number who benefit from this tax cut or that the pattern of taxable receipts from capital gains tax come from those who trade in financial assets, it blows apart any claim the Tories make about ‘we are all in it together’,” said Mr McDonnell.

“This crass tax cut should not be going ahead, because we need an economy that works for the many, not tax cuts for the few.”

Labour dealt a double blow to Mr Osborne yesterday by revealing that a Tory pledge to deliver tax-free childcare had been delayed for a second year.

The small print of the Budget document revealed that no money had been committed to the scheme until Autumn 2017 at the earliest.

By then parents will have been waiting over four years for the government to fulfil its pledge to deliver 30 hours of free childcare.

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