article_snippet: Mr Osborne is expected to pledge to accelerate increases in the 40p income tax threshold if the Conservatives win the general election.
article_snippet: Those earning up to £100,000 have benefited from repeated increases in the 20p threshold, but not as much as the 26million basic-rate taxpayers.
article_snippet: Mr Osborne persuaded reluctant Liberal Democrat colleagues to agree that the higher-rate tax threshold should rise gradually from £41,865 this year to £43,300 in April 2017 as Mr Osborne sought to woo voters ahead of May's election.
article_snippet: Mr Osborne says Mr Osborne wants to deliver a threshold of £50,000 for higher-rate tax and £12,500 for the basic rate.
article_snippet: The think-tank said the threshold would need to rise to £48,650 by 2017 to ensure that higher-rate taxpayers had not lost out since 2010.
article_snippet: But Mr Osborne said basic-rate taxpayers will be £597 a year better off by 2017-18 because of increases in the personal allowance –
article_snippet: the point at which income tax of 20 per cent kicks in.
article_snippet: Mr Osborne says Mr Osborne wants to deliver a threshold of £50,000 for higher-rate tax and £12,500 for the basic rate .
article_snippet: the Coalition has already raised the personal allowance from about £6,500 to £10,000 and it is due to hit £11,000 in 2017.
article_snippet: Mr Osborne said the planned increases in the 40p threshold in the coming years – which could be reversed by an incoming Labour government – were a modest 'downpayment' on Tory plans to raise the threshold to £50,000 by 2020.
article_snippet: The number of people paying 40p tax has risen from around three million to five million since 2010 and is due to keep rising.
article_snippet: But it has warned that such a large increase in the threshold 'might be politically difficult for a government to go ahead with' given the likely backlash among voters.
article_snippet: The Tories have so far refused to say exactly where the money will come from to fund an increase in the 40p threshold to £50,000 by 2020.
article_snippet: The policy has been opposed by Labour and the Lib Dems.
article_snippet: Critics called on all political parties to raise the threshold at which the 40p tax rate kicks in.
article_snippet: One leading tax adviser said the 40p rate of income tax 'was not intended to be a tax on people who you would hardly say are earning a fortune'.
highlights_snippet: Mr Osborne urged reluctant Lib Dems to agreed to higher-rate threshold .
  