PM's suggested abolition of 50pc tax ruled out

The Prime Minister has hinted that the Coalition government is to ignore the imploring of senior business leaders to get rid of the 50 per cent tax rate. In an interview on BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show, David Cameron played down the prospects of abolishing the tax rate, stating that it was part of the government's larger plan to share out the pain of deficit reduction fairly. "I have been very clear - we have all been very clear - that we have to do this in a way that is fair so that the broadest backs bear the biggest burden," he told Vine. "That is why we haven't changed for instance the 50p tax rate."His statement followed renewed appeals by an influential group of some of the UK's most important business leaders to rebuild the British economy through spending on infrastructure, rather than through what they see is an unjustly punitive highest level tax rate. "An early removal of the temporary 50 per cent tax rate would attract wealth generators to the UK and support the entrepreneurs we need to help us grow the economy and provide jobs," the group wrote in an open letter. Members of the lobbying group included Sir Nigel Rudd, the chairman of airports operator BAA, Chris Grigg, the chief executive of British Land and Harvey McGrath, the chairman of Prudential.

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