LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) – Britain’s Treasury Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he wanted longer-term cuts in tax rates for individuals and businesses in particular, but warned it would take time as the economy needs to grow faster first.
Hunt, who is due to present his budget on Wednesday, said in an interview broadcast on Saturday that lower tax rates are only possible once the economy is on a sustainable growth path.
“I want to lower personal taxes because that’s the core of what it means to be a Conservative, but I want to lower corporate taxes even more,” he told GB News. “We won’t be able to get there in one go.”
“We’re trying to increase the productive capacity of the economy, and a highly taxed, heavily regulated economy has less productive capacity,” he said.
Lawmakers from Hunt’s ruling Conservative Party want him to halt April’s sharp rise in the corporate tax rate to help an economy on the brink of recession, the only one in the Group of Seven that has not regained its pre-coronavirus pandemic size.
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Hunt indicated that he would first look at measures to encourage business investment through incentives.
“For manufacturing … these capital allowances work, so I’d say we want to lower our effective corporate tax, the total amount that people pay,” he said, referring to measures that allow companies to offset capital expenditures against their tax bill.
Reporting by Sarah Young Editing by William Schomberg
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