Sunak to Show Plan to Add Income Tax by 6 Billion Pounds: Times

(Bloomberg) -- The U.K.’s finance minister Rishi Sunak will elaborate on plans to increase income taxes by 6 billion pounds ($8.4 billion) in his budget speech this week, the Times reported.

Sunak will freeze the income tax rate thresholds of 12,500 pounds and 50,000 pounds for at least three years, the paper said, without citing anyone. Keeping the thresholds on hold rather than raising them would mean more people are paying taxes as wages rise.

About 800,000 people who currently aren’t paying income taxes will do so before the next election is due, the paper said. In that period, another 800,000 people are expected to move into the next tax bracket, it said.

The chancellor of the exchequer will set out the details in his March 3 budget after Prime Minister Boris Johnson outlined a plan for reopening the U.K. economy that keeps some businesses closed until at least June 21. Sunak faces a daunting task to put the economy on a path to recovery after suffering its deepest slump in three centuries last year. Unemployment climbed to its highest rate in almost five years in the fourth quarter, according to the Office for National Statistics.

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