We are used to broken tax promises in run-up to election

ship was called, Boris Johnson said one of the benefits of leaving the bloc was that we would be able to abolish the tax. Johnson failed to honour his pledge as prime minsiter and none of his successors has touched it, despite the UK having left the EU four years ago. If Rachel Reeves becomes our next chancellor, I wonder if she will discover her inner Brown and honour his commitment?

It was in 1997, of course, that Brown decided to make up his budget shortfall by taxing pension funds on their dividend income. He attempted to dress it up as tax simplification by announcing it in Parliament as the abolition of Advance Corporation Tax, to cheers from his naive backbenchers, who rather embarrassingly thought he was making a tax cut.

Treasury minister Geoffrey Robinson subsequently let the cat out of the bag saying that they needed the money and it had to come from somewhere. Pensions funds have suffered ever since.

We usually think of stamp duty as applying when we buy a property, but stamp duty also applies at 0.5pc when you, your Isa or your pension fund buy shares in the main UK stock market. This may not sound a lot, but it adds up. The Government takes about £4bn a year from this, almost equivalent to 1pc on income tax. Furthermore, it damages our competitiveness in international investment markets.

In the Conservative Party manifesto for the 1992 election, John Major committed to abolishing stamp duty on share transactions. Despite the Conservatives winning the election, it was not abolished in the following five years, and remains in place today.

In his 1996 budget speech chancellor, Ken Clarke said: “Inheritance tax is a penalty on thrift, independence and enterprise. This government is committed to reducing and abolishing inheritance and capital gains tax.”

A related pledge was made by shadow chancellor George Osborne at his party conference in October 2007. He said: “The next Conservative government will raise the Inheritance Tax threshold to £1m. That means, we will take the family home out of Inheritance Tax. In a Conservative Britain, only millionaires will pay death duties”. Despite 14 years of Tory chancellors and calls by this paper for reform, the basic IHT threshold remains frozen at £325,000.

In 1997 Parliament passed a law known as the Rooker-Wise amendment under which personal tax allowances have to rise with inflation each year unless prevented by specific legislation. This remains the law. Brown froze allowances in 2000/01 and 2003/04 and was accused by the opposition parties of taxing by stealth through fi scal drag. This was followed in 2010 with the coalition government adopting a key policy from the Lib Dem manifesto to increase the allowances dramatically over the next five years. However, this Government has reverted to a longterm freeze of thresholds that leave millions paying more.

The reason we get into this mess, in my view, is because politicians from all parties feel obliged to make pre- election promises when they cannot know what events will blow them off course. After all, few anticipated the Covid pandemic or the Russian invasion of Ukraine. My hope is that this time they will not try to compete with each other over how they will spend our money, but pledge to make policy decisions in the best interests of the people who entrusted them to do so.

Finally, although nothing to do with tax, my favourite pledge – if that is the right term – comes from the 2019 Conservative manifesto. It is: “We will launch the biggest ever pothole-filling programme as part of our National Infrastructure Strategy – and our major investment in roads will ensure new potholes are much less likely to appear in the future”.

I would be keen to hear from readers on how you feel this has gone.

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Mike Warburton was previously a tax director with accountants Grant Thornton and is now retired.