Ripping up Reeves's stealth tax would be Burnham's most expensive gamble

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

61% : It is a classic undercover tax rise, letting inflation and pay rises erode the real value of the £12,570 tax-free allowance so that more and more of workers' income can be targeted by the taxman.
55% : The MP for Makerfield has identified a major drag on living standards: the stealth tax on income.
52% : Even with the smallest possible triple lock increase of 2.5pc, it would mean allowing workers and pensioners to earn £12,861 next year before paying income tax.
51% : One option could be to increase the threshold at which people start to pay tax in line with the state pension triple lock, which guarantees that the state pension increases annually by the highest of inflation, average earnings growth or 2.5pc.
48% : From next year, the full new state pension is expected to exceed the frozen tax-free allowance, meaning retirees with no income beyond the state pension would be dragged into paying income tax.
47% : Yet in a break with his predecessor, the new Prime Minister has come dangerously close to promising lower taxes.
47% : First launched when Rishi Sunak froze tax thresholds at 2021 levels, it was extended by Rachel Reeves to cover the rest of the decade.
46% : The idea was that people would not really notice - it is a more subtle raid than a straightforward increase in tax rates.
44% : " Yet it remains unclear how a Prime Minister taking the reins of a Government with limited financial breathing space could afford to cancel as powerful a revenue-raiser as the stealth income tax.
39% : HMRC estimates that every £100 increase to the tax-free allowance loses the Treasury as much as £1bn per year.
38% : Burnham has promised families "breathing space" to help with the cost of living and said "characterising me as a tax-raiser" was a mistake.
38% : Reeves has previously promised that those pensioners would not have to pay income tax, but the mechanics of how this would work remain unclear.

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