Singletons are the biggest losers in Brown's tax grab

Couples without children and singletons have been the biggest losers of Gordon Brown's tax policies, figures released today show.

They reveal how the Chancellor has deliberately targeted single people to pay for Labour's family-friendly policies.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a single earner is £18 a week worse off than they were 10 years ago.

Dinkies - double income households with no kids - have also been hit hard. Their joint income has fallen by more than three per cent since 1997 - the equivalent of losing nearly £100 off their monthly pay packet.

They have been hit hard by National Insurance rises, have lost the married couple's tax allowance and Miras (mortgage interest relief at source).

By contrast low-income families with children, single parents, and pensioners have all seen their incomes rise under Labour.

The Conservatives said the statistics showed Mr Brown was penalising the "aspirational young" in Britain. The IFS analysis-shows how the Chancellor has redistributed money from the rich to the poor.

Since 1997 lone parents have been £36 a week better off and out-of-work couples without children have received an extra £48 a week. By contrast a single wage couple without children have seen their household income shrink by £18 a week.

The figures underline the recent report by the IFS showinghow Mr Brown's tax and benefit policies are acting as a disincentive for people starting work or seeking a better paid job. It found that even someone on £20,000 a year lost 70p of every extra pound they earned because of reduced tax credits and extra taxes.

Stuart Adam, senior research economist at the IFS, said the Chancellor's policies had mixed results. "Raising support for out-of-work families with children has certainly weakened work incentives.

"Means testing will remove the incentive to work and save. But there have been changes in the other direction such as the New Deal," he said."The focus has been on child poverty and pensioner poverty but there are people who don't have children and who are not pensioners but who are poor. There are a number of people in that group who are worse off than average."

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