NICK Clegg will today insist the Coalition policy of raising income-tax-free allowances js "twice as good" in helping working families as Labour's plan to resurrect the old 10p income tax rate.
The Deputy Prime Minister will brush aside Ed Miliband's call for a mansion tax, describing it as "blatant plagiarism" during a speech in the City.
His rebuff to Labour comes after Vince Cable knocked back suggestions, from within the Liberal Democrats' own ranks, for a new French-style tax on jewellery, paintings and other expensive assets, dismissing them as "wacky".
The LibDem Business Secretary also poured cold water on suggestions, again from within his own party, that their controversial proposal for a 1% annual levy on mansions worth more than £2 million could be extended to cover all property assets, including second homes and buy-to-lets.
The ideas have been produced by a party panel ahead of the LibDems' spring conference in Brighton next month for possible inclusion in the 2015 General Election manifesto.
The internal policy consultation concluded there "may be merit" in imposing the 1% levy not on mansions alone but on anyone with a land and property portfolio worth more than the £2m threshold.
It also mooted a wider French-style wealth tax on asset that would involve tax inspectors visiting people's homes to verify the value of declared items.
However, Mr Cable gave the suggestions short shrift, saying: "Some of their ideas are interesting; some of them are a bit wacky."
He added: "The idea of taxing jewellery is completely impractical and intrusive. The idea that you combine together people's properties probably doesn't make a great deal of sense because people's second homes are already subject to capital gains tax and income tax on the rent."
The Secretary of State made clear many of the ideas would not go any further, but stressed the LibDems as a party had "activists who come forward with ideas, we debate them and then we make policy".
"But we are a long, long way from that and these ideas are most emphatically not party policy," he said.
Before the March 20 Budget, Labour is planning to use an Opposition Day debate in the Commons to force a vote on the mansion tax, which it now supports to help pay for a new 10p income tax rate.
Mr Miliband has challenged Mr Clegg and his LibDem colleagues to support the Labour motion. However, senior party sources have suggested this is a clear political stunt by the Labour leader to try to split the Coalition and use the Deputy Prime Minister to embarrass David Cameron.
Mr Cable welcomed Mr Miliband for "seeing sense" and supporting the LibDem mansion tax, saying the policy's time had come, but warned the Labour leader against playing political games and said if the vote was linked to the 10p tax rate, his colleagues would not support it.
Meanwhile, Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps said raising thresholds was the most efficient" way to ease the tax burden, and hinted the Tories would look at pushing it beyond the £10,000 target for this parliament.
Asked about the prospects of the Chancellor adopting the 10p rate, he said: "What I will say is I'm absolutely confident that we will reduce tax, not to 10% but to zero for even more people by the election."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article