A row has been brewing within the Labour Party about the decision by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor � confirmed in the 2008 Budget � to scrap the 10 per cent 'starting rate of income tax' partly as a way of reducing the basic rate of income tax from 22% to 20% (from April 2008). One of the related issues to this is how the income tax system affects the final distribution of income in the UK and, in particular, the distinction between progressive and regressive taxes.
