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Reform UK Promises £15,000 Tax-Free Personal Allowance Amid Funding Scandal
Confirmed
In Short: Reform UK has pledged to increase the tax-free personal allowance to £15,000 if elected, but faces scrutiny over funding allegations.
Reform UK has promised to increase the tax-free personal allowance to £15,000 if it wins the next general election, a move that would save most taxpayers £500 a year and benefit 2.9 million people. However, the party is under investigation for alleged breaches of political donation rules, following claims that it received foreign funding for polling.
Party leader Robert Jenrick defended the policy, stating that the party had taken legal advice and believed it had not done anything wrong. He also addressed the funding scandal, saying that the comments made by senior aides were 'loose pub talk.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats have reported the party to the Metropolitan Police, while the personal allowance has been frozen at £12,570 since 2021. The scandal overshadows the party's plans to introduce the tax cut within the first 100 days if they become the government.
What's confirmed
What's still developing
- Asked about two senior Reform aides being investigated by the party following a Channel 4 News undercover broadcast into claims about funding, Jenrick told the BBC Nigel Farage had acted swiftly and they had been suspended.
- Orr told Sky News he would cooperate fully with the party's internal investigation.
- The policy was announced at Jenrick's speech on the last day of the party's conference in Birmingham.
- Anyone earning more than £100,000 starts to lose their personal allowance.
- Shortly after becoming prime minister, Andy Burnham told the Times that the "frustration" of people in his Makerfield constituency about the frozen allowance had "lodged in my mind".
- In undercover filming by Verbatim Investigations Farage's senior aide Dan Jukes and Reform's head of policy James Orr suggested a way around electoral law to secure foreign party donations for the party, one of which would have totalled £500,000.
- Electoral law sets out that to be a donor to a UK political party you must be a UK registered voter, or a company registered in the UK.
- It says the policy would cost £17.7bn in the first year, rising to £21bn by the fifth year and could be paid for through £80bn of public spending cuts the party plans to make.