They’re not giving them it though. They’re just taking less from them in taxation. It’s an important difference.
It is still an incredibly stupid policy choice but it isn’t a ‘handout’ to the rich; it’s a tax saving.
If a shop is running a promotion at 25% off and then decide to offer an extra 5% off, they’re not giving the customer anything. They’re charging them less and making less money from them. The same thing happens when the government reduce tax rates - you just have to pay them less.
I think that the PAYE system stops people from properly recognising how taxation affects them. We just see our take home pay as what we earn in lots of important ways. We don’t really pay that much attention to the tax. If we had to set aside the tax ourselves, transfer it to the government from our own bank accounts and file tax returns about it, we’d probably feel more that this was a paying less thing rather than a getting more one.
Council tax, which we do have to pay direct to the local authority feels a bit different. A reduction in council tax feels like a we are paying less rather than receiving anything. But most of us experience income tax very differently.
Changes in benefits are increases or reductions in what the government gives out. Whenever there’s a tax cut (that doesn’t benefit us in particular), taxation gets framed in a similar way. It’s almost as if the income is the state’s money to start with and the non-taxed portion is what the state gives people, rather than what’s left after they’ve given the state the taxes owed from their own money.
It doesn’t necessarily work the same where when they raise taxes in ways that increase our own tax burden. That’s usually framed as taking our money away. Interestingly the same logic doesn’t apply when people who earn more than us have their tax burden increased. That money was somehow the state’s and, of course, they shouldn’t be giving handouts to the rich.