Personal tax: Cameron defends planned CGT hike

Personal tax: Cameron defends planned CGT hike

The Prime Minister defended plans to increase capital gains tax on non-business assets as critics warned that any increase in CGT rates without an allowance for inflation would be unfair on long-term investors. Responding to reports of 'extreme unease' at the idea of CGT at 40% or 50% David Cameron told the BBC's Andrew Marr on 16 May: 'When you have a capital gains tax rate of 18% and a top rate of income tax at 50% you'll find people finding all sorts of ways to treat income as capital gains. Now what we've said is there is a very big difference between the capital gains that someone pays on say a second home — which is not you know necessarily a splendid investment for the whole economy — there's a difference between that and actual investment in business assets...