Tax Taxing Questions: Rental Income How Labour can raise the revenue we need 6 November 2025 by Adam Corlett This article was originally published on 25th October in Taxing Questions: How Labour can raise the revenue we need edited by Joe Dromey and Iggy Wood for Fabian Society. Rental Income As Jeremy Hunt said in 2024, there is an unfair double tax on work. Take-home pay is reduced not just by income tax, but … Continued READ MORE
Tax· Unsung Britain Rising Council Tax bills and the spectre of the poll tax 17 February 2025 by Lalitha Try and Tom Clark Local government finances have long been desperately strained, caught between a sharp squeeze in grants from the centre over the austerity years, and rising obligations to social care and special educational needs. Something has to give, and in parts of the country at least it will be the established presumption against rises of over 5 … Continued READ MORE
Tax· Economy 2030 Tax reliefs should remain a focus of tax reform 7 December 2023 by Adam Corlett It may not be exactly what is on your Christmas present wishlist, but this week has brought two exciting goodies. First, and most importantly, the Economy 2030 Inquiry’s final report – Ending Stagnation; and, second, HMRC’s annual update of tax relief statistics. This blog takes a look at the overlap between the two, with a … Continued READ MORE
Tax The coming tax reshuffle: winners and losers 20 November 2023 by Torsten Bell and Adam Corlett and Lalitha Try Last week, the Prime Minister carried out a major Cabinet reshuffle, aiming for a political reset as the election run-in builds up steam. This week, the Chancellor is doing his bit towards the same goal, with a major tax reshuffle – adding tax cuts to the tax rises already in train – on the cards … Continued READ MORE
Tax Five bad ways to hand out £4 billion a year 12 January 2023 by Adam Corlett Taxes are going up, in large part due to big policy choices like the upcoming rise in the Corporation Tax rate and the prolonged freezing of various tax thresholds. Yet it’s always possible that further tax rises will be needed sooner or later, perhaps to support struggling public services, or to raise funds to allow … Continued READ MORE
Budgets & fiscal events· Tax Low tax conservatism is dead, but fiscal conservatism is back in fashion 13 September 2021 by Torsten Bell The Prime Minister and Chancellor made huge policy decisions this week, raising taxes to spend more on the NHS and protect the assets of those facing high social care costs. But the tsunami of announcements can also hide the biggest decisions they’ve taken: to bury the idea of low tax conservatism but resurrect, after a … Continued READ MORE
Public finances· Tax· Covid-19 Fiscal multi-tasking 12 November 2020 by Torsten Bell Multi-tasking can be hard. Ask any parent that survived lockdown by combining work with something resembling home schooling. But it’s also a fact of life, so the trick is to manage multiple objectives well, not wish them away. This is true for people and our Government. Indeed, fiscal multi-tasking is what the 2020s are all … Continued READ MORE
Incomes· Prices & consumption· Trade· Tax After Brexit the UK could cut VAT on energy – but should it? 2 September 2019 by Adam Corlett During the EU referendum, one of Vote Leave’s promises was that “fuel bills will be lower for everyone”. Specifically, Boris Johnson and others argued that: “In 1993, VAT on household energy bills was imposed. This makes gas and electricity much more expensive. EU rules mean we cannot take VAT off those bills. The least wealthy … Continued READ MORE
Incomes· Tax· Political parties and elections Tax cuts for the rich is not the answer to the questions 21st century Britain is asking 10 June 2019 by Torsten Bell Politics is about answering the question the country is asking at that time, and in that place. Context matters. This fact seems to have escaped the notice of a number of candidates in the rather crowded field to be the next Conservative leader, judging by the single focus of many of their big ideas: massive … Continued READ MORE
Tax New year, new era: tax and spend in 21st Century Britain 3 April 2019 by Torsten Bell and Resolution Foundation Eras of Britain’s political economy come and go. They ebb and flow, driven by political and economic cycles. Sometimes shifts are hard to see at the time, particularly when they are obscured by the political fog of war. Or Brexit, as it’s currently known. But noticed or not, the financial year starting this Saturday will mark the … Continued READ MORE
Wealth· Tax How wealth taxes can raise billions more without scaring any horses 3 January 2019 by Torsten Bell and Adam Corlett Raising taxes is never easy. Raising taxes with the government’s slim parliamentary majority is harder still. Raising taxes on wealth in those circumstances, given our diverging senses of fairness is… not a walk in the park. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need doing, and the good news is that significant progress can be made … Continued READ MORE
Budgets & fiscal events· Public finances· Tax The Chancellor may have one arm tied behind his back, but there are still tax levers he can pull 21 October 2018 by Adam Corlett How can a government with a tenuous majority, an intra-party feud and Brexit uncertainty find the money to ‘end austerity’ on top of more than £20 billion a year it has promised for the NHS? The safe bet is that it won’t find anywhere near all of it in the Budget. This can – like … Continued READ MORE
Public finances· Tax· Generations· Political parties and elections Britain is set to replace the era of austerity with a new era of tax rises 7 October 2018 by David Willetts The main message that has united both main party conferences over the last fortnight is that the era of austerity is over. For Labour that means more spending on new things – from universal childcare to a mass programme of nationalisation. And for many Conservatives it means a return to what they love doing best … Continued READ MORE
Budgets & fiscal events· Public finances· Tax Is there enough fuel in the fiscal tank for another duty freeze? 3 October 2018 by Matthew Whittaker After eight years of freezes, it had started to look like successive governments’ cancellation of the annual RPI-linked uprating of fuel duty had run out of road. After all, it’s already costing the government around £9 billion a year, and that cost will grow with each passing year. But we now know that the Chancellor … Continued READ MORE
Wealth· Tax Entrepreneurs’ Relief has cost £22 billion over the past 10 years. Was it worth it? 29 August 2018 by Adam Corlett The hunt is on for extra tax revenues. First came the announcement of an NHS funding boost, back in June. Now, the Chancellor has the harder task of working out where he will find the more than £20 billion required. Some is likely to come from higher borrowing, and better than expected public finance figures … Continued READ MORE
Prices & consumption· Incomes· Inequality & poverty· Tax No, the poorest don’t pay higher taxes than the richest 20 June 2018 by Adam Corlett We all know that parts of the tax system are very progressive – and this should be very apparent in the Autumn Statement when the Chancellor unveils perhaps £10 billion of tax rises that will target the wealthy. But wait, some say, when you factor in taxes such as VAT it’s actually poorer households that … Continued READ MORE
Incomes· Inequality & poverty· Tax What share of tax do the top 1 per cent pay? Less than you might have heard 23 May 2018 by Adam Corlett Late last year in a PMQs exchange about tax, the Prime Minister said that “the top 1 per cent of earners in this country are paying 28 per cent of the tax burden” – “the highest percentage ever”. She’s not alone in saying this. As statistics go, this one is remarkably popular in newspapers, parliament … Continued READ MORE
Wealth· Tax· Generations There’s something off-key about our approach to inheritance tax 2 May 2018 by Matthew Whittaker It takes something to be crowned Britain’s most hated tax – a bit like being the UK’s worst ever Eurovision entry – but that is the unwanted title held by inheritance tax. It doesn’t help that it’s a tax that’s unavoidably associated with the death of loved ones. And complexity is undoubtedly a problem too. … Continued READ MORE
Housing· Tax· Generations Council tax is a farce – it’s time for a real property tax 21 March 2018 by Laura Gardiner It’s an open secret that council tax is a dog’s dinner. It was conjured up in the early 1990s as a half-way house between the hated ‘poll tax’ and the old domestic rates system, meaning those in top-band properties have much lower tax rates than those in cheaper homes. In England and Scotland, it is … Continued READ MORE
Housing· Tax· Generations It’s time to properly abolish the ‘poll tax’ 20 March 2018 by Adam Corlett What is Britain’s most badly designed tax? A leading contender has to be council tax. It’s a tax based on 27 year old house valuations, but this isn’t even the biggest problem. Council tax would bear little relation to property values even if it were revalued. Typical council tax bills for the most expensive homes … Continued READ MORE
Social security· Tax· Generations To maintain our welfare state we need to rethink how we pay for it 5 February 2018 by Torsten Bell Social democracy gave 20th Century Britain the welfare state. But in the 21st Century it’s wandered off for a long post-crisis snooze, just at the time when big challenges to that welfare state are looming into view. It’s time it woke up because, for a new generation of social democrats, there is work to do. … Continued READ MORE
Budgets & fiscal events· Scotland· Tax Will the (Scottish) Budget raise income tax rates? 20 November 2017 by Adam Corlett With the UK Budget imminent, it’s important not to forget proposals released in Scotland earlier this month. These could lead to increases in income tax rates as soon as April, intended to protect public services and benefits in Scotland. This would be a departure from the usual direction of travel in the UK: there has … Continued READ MORE
Budgets & fiscal events· Public finances· Tax All gain, no pain? – the Chancellor’s cunning tax plan 16 November 2017 by Torsten Bell British politics is odd these days. But even by current standards something very unusual looks set to happen in next week’s Budget. A basic rule of British politics is that tax rises tend to happen soon after a general election, with the Chancellor betting that we’ll all have forgotten about them when the next election … Continued READ MORE
Housing· Tax· Generations· Political parties and elections Death taxes, the Conservative manifesto, and the changing politics of intergenerational fairness 18 May 2017 by Torsten Bell Today we got sight of the Conservative Party’s Theresa May’s manifesto. Just two short years since the last Tory manifesto was presented to the British public, this 2017 offering is a very different beast. The personality shift is all too obvious as Mayism well and truly buries the Cameron/Osborne era of combining rhetorical focus on … Continued READ MORE
Tax· Political parties and elections Let’s talk about tax 6 May 2017 by Torsten Bell Something unusual is happening in this general election campaign. Everyone is talking about raising taxes. Last Sunday Theresa May told Britain she wouldn’t be repeating David Cameron’s mistake of ruling out ever raising any of National Insurance, income tax or VAT. Before that Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, had hinted that people earning over £70-£80,000 … Continued READ MORE
