Wealthy targeted in Lib Dem plans
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has said he is committed to building a "fairer Britain" as he set out plans to raise more than £17 billion a year by targeting the wealthiest in society.
Central to the strategy is a new tax on the owners of the estimated 250,000 properties worth more than £1 million and closing loopholes exploited by top earners.
The cash raised would help fund the Lib Dems' pledge to introduce a new income tax starting threshold of £10,000, lifting four million low earners out of tax altogether.
"We need a fairer Britain, we need to really lighten the tax burden on those millions of people who are struggling to make ends meet," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
"We have a tax system which historically has been one of the most unfair tax systems around where, if you are on ordinary incomes or low incomes, you pay much more in tax as a proportion of your wealth and your income. This is a small correction which I think would make a big difference for people who are really struggling to make ends meet."
The details of the plan will be set out by Lib Dem economic affairs spokesman Vince Cable in his keynote speech to the party's annual conference in Bournemouth.
It includes a new 0.5% levy on the value of properties over the £1 million threshold and a pledge to prevent high earners paying capital gains tax at 18% rather than the top rate of income tax.
Money will also be raised by reducing the annual exemption from capital gains tax from £10,000 to £2,000 and by levying national insurance on company "benefits in kind".
Mr Clegg, meanwhile, sought to defuse the controversy over his comments at the weekend that there would have to be "savage" spending cuts after the next general election to rebuild the public finances.
He acknowledged that he could have used softer language, but insisted that he was right to identify the scale of the problem facing the country.
