text: Labour appeared split on its proposed new 50p top rate of income tax today after shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna said it should only be a temporary measure. Mr Umunna, increasingly tipped as a likely successor to Ed Miliband, said he was opposed to 'taxing for the sake of taxing'. His remarks highlighted divisions in Labour's top ranks over the 50p rate, introduced for the last few weeks of Gordon Brown's government as a trap for the Tories. Shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna, increasingly tipped as a likely successor to Ed Miliband, said he was opposed to 'taxing for the sake of taxing . When George Osborne reduced it to 45p, arguing the rate was deterring businesspeople and ‘wealth creators’, Labour railed against what it has ever since called a 'millionaires' tax cut'. In fact, the rate applied to income over £150,000, and Labour has said it will reintroduce it if re-elected. The Scottish National Party has pledged to vote in favour of a 50p top rate if it holds the balance of power after May 7. But Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls is said to want the new top rate to be temporary, while Mr Miliband is more ideologically wedded to maintaining it. During the Labour leadership race in 2010, Mr Miliband said the 50p rate should stay in place and was 'not just about reducing the deficit, it’s about fairness in our society'. Today, in an interview with with the New Statesman magazine, shadow business secretary Mr Umunna broke ranks to insist that how long to sustain the measure should be a purely economic decision and not a moral one. 'I wouldn’t want to do it permanently because ... I would like to see the tax burden as low as possible,' he said. 'I don’t believe that you tax for the sake of taxing: you tax to fund public services and, currently, to reduce our deficit and our debt. 'I'm very clear: I did not go into politics to tax people. We should be very clear about that as a party.' Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, speaking in Birmingham today, is said to want the new top rate to be temporary, while Mr Miliband is more ideologically wedded to maintaining it . During the Labour leadership race in 2010, Ed Miliband - pictured campaigning in north London today, said the 50p rate should stay in place and was 'not just about reducing the deficit, it’s about fairness in our society' Mr Umunna also argued that Labour needs to make a more positive and confident case for reducing the deficit in order to cope with the Left-wing backlash it would encounter in office. 'I don't think there is anything progressive in spending more on your debt interest repayments every year than you do on housing, than you do on transport,' he said. 'That is where there is an argument from a progressive position to be made for balancing the books. We need to make that argument and we need to make it more confidently. 'Because if we get elected . . . we're going to have to make some really tough decisions. And we need to be clear why we're doing this - we will be attacked from the left, not just by the Green Party but the Socialist Party and others, and we've got to have a confident, not a defensive position.' Asked whether he would like to be Labour leader, Mr Umunna failed to rule it out. 'I always listen to Tessa Jowell, who's like my political mum, who says you've got to keep your feet firmly on the ground and for every person who writes up something like that there'll be another slagging you off,’ said the 36-year-old. 'So I think you've got to keep a sense of perspective and you've got to remember in politics that it isn't about you, it's actually about the ideas, the arguments and the party.' Mr Balls yesterday published an audit of spending and tax commitments in the Conservative Party manifesto which he claims shows the Tories have made £25 billion a year of promises which they have not explained how they will pay for. In a speech in the West Midlands, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor will say that this £25 billion is the equivalent of £1,439 a year for every working household in Britain. 'The Conservative Party manifesto contains billions of pounds of panicky promises with absolutely no idea where the money is coming from,' he said. Chancellor George Osborne has rejected Mr Balls's criticisms of the Tory manifesto as 'absurd'. He has refused to rule out reducing the top tax rate back down to 40p, where it was during Tony Blair's entire period of office.
target: Mr Umunna said he was opposed to 'taxing for the sake of taxing'
  Business Secretary said re-introduction of the rate should be temporary .
  His remarks highlighted divisions in Labour's top ranks over the 50p rate .
  Ed Miliband said the 50p top rate of tax was 'about fairness in our society'