It is said that it would cost £7 billion a year to compensate those low wage earners who are having their income stolen from them in order to help the wealthy obtain their tax breaks. Surely, this is chicken feed Brown can come up with billions of pounds overnight when he wants to invade other people's countrys or to rescue failed banks.

Neil, Gloucestershire, England

10% of not a lot isn't very much. 10% of the salary and perks enjoyed by Labour MPs is a much more significant sum. How about Gordon and all the other Labour MPs and councillors contribute an additional 10% tax on most of their income (salary and perks) ..... then he might START to understand.

Donna Walker, Effingham, Surrey

I know this will sound fiendishly complicated to the IT consultants employed by HMG and probably worth a multi-billion-trillion pound contract, but two lines of code in the software used to calculate tax codes (assuming that HMRC don't still use pencil and paper).
If gross income less than £18,000 and not in receipt of working family tax credits then do
add to unadjusted tax-code (£1200 - (gross income - unadjusted tax code)/10)
That has just taken me all of 10 minutes to work out the maths so that the 20% who are net losers cease to be. So much for GB being a monster brain. Although it does assume that the tax code calculation sofware can access tax credit information - bet it can't.
Gis a job!

Eddie Reader, birmingham, england

Gordon Brown should direct his anger at his political opportunism
in wanting to shoot the Tory's tax fox ahead of the election he intended to call, before the changes were implimented ,and his cowardice in not calling it .
This man does dither and he is out of touch.He lacks political courage and the character needed in a leader.

robert everitt, wolverhampton,

Point sort of taken, David W of MH, but if the additional, compensatory tax credits were withdrawn at the same time as the 10p band was restored, then presumably the net cost would be much less than 7bn (while keeping the new 20% rate). Unless, of course, the Treasury is relying on less than 100% take-up of said new credits, something I think the Red Book hints at.

Not that I would ever accuse this administration of deviousness or obfuscation.

W Martin, Tenterden,

Gordon Brown said to journalists that we should realise we are "living under the most generous Labour government that there has ever been". "Generous" government?! It is our money, not Government's or Brown's money!

And Brown's view of "generosity" centres on hand-outs to the poor, in the form of state benefits. But these are destroying the former "working" class, by co-opting it into being a new work-shy underclass – paradoxically, shamed, humiliated and resentful. And worse still, generating even more resentful children, rebellious and violent, that now have a "kick" out of kicking heads – sometimes to death (and sometimes using the now fashionable “stamping”).

To really help the poor Brown should instead have trimmed benefits and invested in training. He should have pushed people into good jobs. And the working class would be working now, much better-off, and with pride and self respect. Hand-outs may make Brown feel “generous”, but they are destroying Britain.

Laura Fox, Chichester, West Sussex, UK

Chris W and W Martin wonder where the other 6 billion is going. The answer is that it is funding the 2p reduction in the standard rate of tax which was supposed to establish Labour's claim to be a tax cutting government.

David W, market harborough, UK

So if the treasury retained the 10p tax rate they would lose £7 billion a year. How much more of our money does this thieving robber-baron government want?

Martin, Cambridge, UK

What is amazing is that the backbenchers now in revolt over the abolition of the 10p rate were the same people who were cheering and goading the Tories when Brown announced it to the Commons last year.
As with most of Brown's economic policies, they sound great at first mention but unravel pretty quickly when exposed to even a modest amount of scrutiny.

james potts, cardiff, UK

I cannot make sense of the maths in this article.

5.3 million families paying an average of £2 per week equates to £551.2 million, which is 'significantly' less than £1 billion in total that you refer to.

Whichever figure is correct, why would it cost the Treasury £7 billion to abandon the abolition of the 10p rate that only raises a fraction of this amount?

Chris W, Kendal,

"The losses are not large, probably averaging £2 a week and less than £1 billion in total."

and

"abandoning the abolition of the 10p rate would cost the Treasury more than £7 billion a year."

So the other £6bn is what, admin costs?

W Martin, Tenterden,

I fear that the exercise was yet another step on the path of extending the payroll / dependency vote. Let them means test.

Mike, West Midlands, UK

I am sure that when Brown said at the budget last year that he was reducing the 22p tax rate to 20p without mentioning the taking away of the 10p rate, he thought that he would be in No10 and holding an election last year, before anybody realised the full consequences of what he had done. This was just a pre-election ploy.
Because he dithered over and then bottled the election he has been well and truly caught out in a mess completely of his own making. He has shown just how out of touch he is with the vast majority of the generally fair minded British people, who would not want to benefit by the unfairly taxing of the poor until 'the pips squeak' .
He should feel ashamed of himself ,as indeed should anybody who voted for this vile, and heartless government.
When Brown gets voted out as he most certainly will, it will be very much a case of good riddance to bad rubbish.
The only sadness is that he has two years to further ruin Britain. If he had any decency he would resign now.

roger, lagos,