'Taxes' under New Labour.
New Labour pledged in 1997 and again in 2001 'Taxes will not be raised'

Labour have increased taxes since 1997 by the equivalent of 16.5p on the basic rate of Income Tax , or an effective rate of tax paid by the average working person of 38.5p in the £. As reported by accountants Smith & Williamson.

£20 Billion a year of Our Money is wasted because productivity across public services has dropped by between 15% and 20% since New Labour came to power. That is equivalent to 6p on the basic rate of Tax !! as a direct result of their incompetence.

• 66 Tax rises have been brought in by Gordon Brown and New Labour since 1997 as 'Stealth Taxes' despite pledges not to raise taxes.
• The average family now pays £5,000 a year more in taxes under new Labour and its stealth taxes than it did in 1997.
• A family man with two children who earns £40,000 a year is now paying as much as 50p in the pound to the Government in direct and indirect tax, a 50% increase on the 35p in the pound of 1997.
• Freezing personal allowances, the amount you are allowed to earn tax free before paying tax, rather than increasing them in line with inflation netted Grodn Brown an extra Half a Billion pounds in income tax in 2003 alone!
• Pension Funds have been robbed of more than £60 Billion since 1997 by Gordon Brown and this has triggered the current pensions crisis.
• Labour claim pensioners are now better off because of their policies ! But the modest pension and means-tested benefit increases are less than the increased taxation forced on pensioners by Labour's stealth taxes.
• Council Tax rises forced by Labour now take up One Third of the average pensioner's disposable income.
• 1.35 million More People are now paying Tax at 40% under New Labour than in 1997
• 4.2 million More people pay Income Tax since 1997 as Labour have torn up their pledge to take more of the Low Paid out of paying income tax.
• Blair refuses to promise that Labour will not raise Taxes after an election to fund their spending and current financial black hole. But 20 out of 21 of the Treasury's Independent Advisers say Labour will have to raise taxes after an election to fund its spending commitments; so do the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the OECD.