The tax on owners
THIS same government has now tilted the balance further away from personal own- ership of shares. See what happens if you choose to own shares directly. Your future capital gains (after your annual tax allow- ance, which has been reduced) will be aggregated with your income and taxed at your top marginal rate. They are likely to push that rate up to 40 per cent if it is not there already — an increase of one-third on the old Capital Gains Tax rate. If you choose to own shares indirectly, through your interest in a pension fund, they will continue to escape tax on capital gains altogether. So much for fostering personal ownership. Scrap the tax privileges of the pension funds, and you can scrap the top marginal rate of 40 per cent and quite a lot of other tax rates too.
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