Cutting the top tax rate is "cloud cuckoo land" -- at least in the UK.

[eppur_se_muova]

31 July 2011 Last updated at 07:35 ET Help The Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander has rejected calls to cut the top rate of tax.

Speaking on the Andrew Marr show he said anyone who believed the priority should be to abolish the 50p band was living in "cloud cuckoo land".

You can watch the Andrew Marr Show in full on the BBC iPlayer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14358191




some background, from a Murdoch rag:

High earners hit as 50p tax rate goes ahead
Emily Ford

People earning more than £150,000 a year will see a reduction in their take-home pay from today as the new 50p rate of income tax comes into force at the start of the financial year.

In addition to the new tax bracket, announced by Alistair Darling in the Budget last April, high earners will also be subject to a new 42.5 per cent tax on dividends while those people making more than £100,000 a year will have their personal allowance reduced.
***
The Institute of Directors warned that the tax will simply drive top earners abroad, while the CBI decried it as "economic vandalism".

However, the mass relocation of the very rich to gentler tax regimes of Geneva and Zurich does not appear to have materialised.
***
However the tax on {bankers'} bonuses has raised £2 billion, almost four times the Treasury's initial predictions of £550 million.
***
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article7088582.ece

[riverwalker]

1. "drive top earners abroad"

guess they will come to the US, where the rich don't have to pay anything.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. Actually there are several tax havens where UK rich people

can live and pay nothing, officially, or very tiny amounts. Not like here where they can avoid and work around the taxes, all that fuss is not necessary. Unlike Americans, if a UK citizen earns or lives abroad they do not owe tax at home, but only that which is required in their nation of residence. The US would be a bad choice for that, you'd save some, but you could save it all, and you'd work and file and pay experts, when you could just sit on the beach.