Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is under fire after saying a flat tax rate – where millionaires would pay the same rate of tax as the poor – is an ‘attractive idea’
Kemi Badenoch is under fire after suggesting millionaires should pay the same rate of tax as the poor.
The Tory leader faced comparisons to Liz Truss after saying a flat tax rate is a “very attractive” idea on Monday evening. She made the comments at a theatre that is ironically showing a pantomime of Robin Hood – the heroic character known for helping the poor.
Ms Badenoch said the country couldn’t afford to introduce a flat rate of tax at the moment and that the cost of welfare, such as benefits, in the country needs to be “turned around” to do so. The comments triggered comparisons to disastrous ex-PM Ms Truss, who tried to push for tax cuts for the rich but crashed the economy with her unfunded promises. At the time in 2022, Ms Truss admitted her plans would disproportionately benefit wealthy people.
Ms Badenoch made her tax ideas known at an event protesting Labour’s inheritance tax changes for farmers at the London Palladium. The theatre’s owner Andrew Lloyd Webber, who is worth £504million according to the Sunday Times 2023 Rich List and is said to farm nearly 5,000 acres of land, had lent the venue to farmers.
Asked if she would scrap tax bands and put in place a flat tax if the Tories were in power, Ms Badenoch said: “This is an idea that I’ve heard many times. It’s very attractive, but if we’re going to get to that sort of scenario, there’s a lot of work we need to do first-hand.
“At the moment, we are a welfare state with a little bit of a productivity attached to it. We’ve got to turn that around. We cannot afford flat taxes where we are now. We need to make sure we rewire our economy so that we can lighten the burden of tax and the regulation on individuals and on those businesses that are just starting out, in particular.”
And referring to the Robin Hood panto at the venue, she added: “I was going to joke that [Chancellor] Rachel Reeves is like Robin Hood – but she takes both from the rich and the poor.”
A Labour spokesman hit back: “Kemi Badenoch needs to come clean about how much she would hike taxes on working people to pay for tax cuts for the super-rich. While Labour protects working people with no tax rises on their payslips, the Tories are bringing out the ghost of Christmas past with these Truss-style tax cuts for millionaires. They haven’t listened and they haven’t learnt.”
British people pay different levels of tax depending on their tax band. At the moment, you don’t have to pay income tax on any earnings up to £12,570. From £12,571 to £50,270 you pay a 20% rate and from £50,271 to £125,140 you pay a 40% rate. Anything over £125,140 will be taxed at a rate of 45%.
Critics have warned that introducing a flat rate in the UK would mean low paid earners would face a tax rise, while high earners would enjoy a tax cut. Only around two dozen countries in the world have a flat rate of tax, including Hungary, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Romania.