AN Easter giveaway tax cut in next week's Budget to reward Britons for suffering years of hardship following the 2008 financial crash has been signalled by Nick Clegg.
After a meeting of the so-called Quad this week, the Deputy Prime Minister made clear he had been pushing for the "biggest possible workers' bonus to millions of people' in a pre-election giveaway.
Ahead of the start today of the Liberal Democrats' spring conference in Liverpool, the party leader said that while Britain's deficit had to be dealt with fairly, he accepted voters needed to know there was "light at the end of the tunnel".
The raising of the tax-free personal allowance from £6400 to £10,000, which was originally a Lib Dem proposal but which the Conservatives have subsequently sought to champion, is due to rise further to £10,600 this April.
However, Mr Clegg made clear he was pushing for another rise of more than £100 in the increase this spring. Already, Tory sources have suggested George Osborne wants to raise the personal allowance by £200, taking it to £10,800, which would save a basic rate taxpayer £160 a year.
One source admitted there was a move to take it to £11,000, which would save most people more than £300 a year.
Mr Clegg said: "It's a source of huge pride to me that despite being told by David Cameron in the leaders' debates back in 2010 that it wasn't possible to raise the tax-free allowance up to £10,000, we've already gone way beyond that. And I think we can go further still."
The Chancellor has made it clear to his officials that the Budget will be cost-neutral, meaning that if there is a giveaway it will have to be funded from elsewhere. Mr Clegg said the money either came from spending reductions or tapping the better off; he placed his emphasis on taking more money from those "with the broadest shoulders".
"You'll see some of this in the Budget; where money is being raised we are asking for that money to be raised in part from people who have got the means to chip in a bit of extra. They might not like but that's the right way of going about things," he said.
However, higher than expected tax receipts, lower oil prices and lower inflation mean Mr Osborne has more scope, an estimated £5bn, to cut the deficit, cut taxes or increase spending than he had planned just three months ago in the Autumn Statement.
Recently, the Chancellor stressed that while next Wednesday's Budget would be fiscally neutral, he still hoped to deliver a major reform to capture the headlines, following the shake-up to pensions and stamp duty. "I wouldn't take the day off," he quipped.
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