Influential anti-poverty campaigner and tax expert Richard Murphy argues that UK Chancellor George Osborne’s growing tax credit tangle should be binned and replaced by basic income.
Richard Murphy
Calling tax credits “a patch intended to cover the consequences” of low pay and spiraling costs of living, Murphy writes that the chancellor’s latest reform will introduce marginal tax rates of up to 93%, a glaring but typical contradiction inherent in UK government initiatives supposed to encourage work.
Murphy, who has close links to the current opposition Labour Party leadership and various civil society organizations, finishes his article with a concise case for UBI based on poverty elimination, social security and pension simplification as well as sweeping reductions to marginal tax rates, tax evasion and benefit fraud.
Richard Murphy, “A basic income for everyone would solve Osborne’s tax credit problem” Tax Research UK, 29 October 2015
