Incredibly, we may miss Chancellor Rachel Reeves when she’s gone (Image: Getty)
We don’t know how long Reeves will survive, but we now have a clear idea of who’ll replace her. And when it comes tax, he’s far more fanatical.
His name is Torsten Bell and as I’ve warned before, .
Reeves is bad enough. She . The UK economy flatlined the moment she opened her mouth and started banging on about that £22billion black hole.
Her £40billion Budget tax onslaught destroyed business confidence, investment, growth and jobs, and it hasn’t even come into force yet.
Her £30billion borrowing spree has left the nation’s finances on a knife edge.
Reeves also axed the , scrapped the £86,000 social care cap, and launched a brutal inheritance tax raid on farmers, business owners and our pensions.
How could Torsten Bell be worse than that? Just you wait.
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Bell is head of left-wing think tank The Resolution Foundation. He was parachuted him into a safe Labour seat at the election.
I wrote in September that he’s been . His progress has been even faster than I expected.
He’s just been promoted to Pensions Minister following the .
Given how much Labour top brass love him, he’s favourite to be next Chancellor.
His views are out there and they’re hair-raising.
Like Reeves, Bell doesn’t have many practical suggestions for boosting growth, but has eye-watering plans to hike tax after tax after tax.
This goes way beyond anything Reeves has done.
Bell has called on Reeves to launch another inheritance tax (IHT) blitz by scrapping the £175,000 residence nil-rate band altogether.
Couples could lose tax breaks worth £350,000 if Labour does that.
That’s just for starters.
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Bell also wants the £325,000 nil-rate IHT band slashed to just £125,000, with IHT imposed on all lifetime gifts above £3,000 a year.
He also wants to increase capital gains tax (CGT) on share sales to 37%, and to a whopping 53% on sales of buy-to-let properties and second homes.
He also wants people to pay when people die. That’s been dubbed a double death tax. Bell surely loves the sound of that.
He also wants to impose a punitive exit tax on Brits who , as many more would if he took charge.
As if all that wasn’t enough, Bell wants buy-to-let landlords and the self-employed to pay more national insurance, hike taxes on dividend income, and slash pension tax-free cash to as little as £40,000.
Oh yes and hike fuel duty every year.
Reeves has already fallen for some of his nonsense. Before the election he called for Labour to slap IHT on unused pension savings on death, and axe business and agricultural property reliefs.
She did that in her Autumn Budget, to disastrous effect.
I almost forget, he thinks the is “silly” and wants it gone.
If this lunatic gets in charge, he’ll trigger an even bigger meltdown. It may be hard to imagine today, but we’d be begging for Rachel Reeves to come back.