Tax Credit Scheme

HC Deb 30 January 1985 vol 72 cc218-9W

Sir Brandon Rhys Williams

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the cost of introducing a 1972 style tax credit scheme sufficient to enable family income supplement to be eliminated and to reduce pensioner dependence on supplementary benefit by 750,000; and if he will tabulate the statistical assumptions on which this estimate is based.

Mr. Moore

The net cost of such a scheme would be in the region of £8 billion in a full year at 1984–85 levels of personal allowances and post-November 1984 benefit rates.

The levels of credit assumed in the calculations are £19 per week for a married couple with additions, on top of child benefit of £17.20 per week for the first, and £3.80 per week for each subsequent child.

The method of calculation adopted is broadly that set out on pages 302 to 305 of the minutes of evidence given before the Treasury and Civil Service Sub-Committee on the structure of personal income taxation and income support (20-I).