£379 saving from £10,000 allowance

A basic rate taxpayer would save £379 a year from an early move to Nick Clegg's £10,000 personal allowance - the amount you can earn before income tax kicks in. 

That's £31.58 a month or £7.29 a week.

In addition, of course, those with incomes under £10,000 wouldn't have to pay income tax at all.

Here's a table, kindly supplied by the tax experts at the CIOT, which shows how the calculation is done.

Year	Personal allowance	Amount saved by basic rate taxpayer compared to previous	Amount saved by basic rate taxpayer compared to 2010-11
2010-11	£6475
2011-12	£7475	200	200
2012-13	£8105	126	326
??	£10000	379	705

Courtesy of the Chartered Institute of Taxation

Illiogical tax break will discourage giving

The country's leading tax body has branded government plans to encourage charitable giving in legacies as "arbitrary, complex and illogical".

The plans, announced in this year's budget, would give a tax discount to people who give 10% or more of their estates to charity.

Currently, any money and other assets above a threshold of £325,000 are taxed at 40%. Qualifying charitable givers would be charged a lower rate of 36% from April next year.

But the Chartered Institute of Taxation has protested that the proposals are complicated, capricious and counterproductive.

Its tax experts are worried that the new system would discourage would-be givers from handing money to charity via regular giving or in their wills.

Instead they recommend that any charitable gift in a legacy receives an automatic 11% tax perk for the charity.