Rishi’s quest for cash and voter support

COVID has been expensive and Chancellor Rishi Sunak has to find yet more money from an already highly taxed electorate.

The freezing of tax thresholds will not provide the sums required, so he must cast around elsewhere.

First, he may decide to have a look at NHS prescription charges, currently £9.35 per item. There is no point in increasing them for already it is thought tens of thousands are never handed in due to being unaffordable.

However, there is potential for increasing the current age threshold for free medicines from 60 to 66, the current state pension age. That could be quite lucrative for the taxman, and although would generate howls of protest, would be within what is now deemed to be a normal working life span.

Secondly, as the drive to persuade motorists to switch to electric cars gathers pace, his return from fuel tax will diminish.

Perhaps every home will suffer a tax if it has a specialist charging point and especially those with a 3-phase supply, thus recharging more quickly.

Then again, with modern technology, a mileage tax could be introduced which could also encompass road tax, thus cutting out a great chunk of bureaucracy.

Such an imposition would at least be very fair, for motorists would just be paying for their actual use.

Government has to find the money to pay for its furlough scheme from somewhere and some creative thinking is going to have to be undertaken by the Inland Revenue to try and make impositions as fair as possible.

That is probably why Mr Sunak will be loathe to remove VAT from home fuel supplies for it would bear down disproportionately against poorer households.

Over the next three months, Government has to take measures that will be at variance to their election promises in relation to tax take. It will also have to make policy changes that will address the growing inflation percentages that will affect every aspect of life.

Making the wrong moves could be an election loser. Russell Luckock is chairman of Birmingham pressings firm

AE Harris