The main justification used for the reduction in the top rate of income tax from 50% to 45% (effective from April 2013) in George Osborne’s Budget yesterday was an analysis by HMRC, published on the same day, which claimed that the top rate was raising very little money – less than £1 billion on an…
In the current environment of fiscal austerity, most areas of government spending – including financial support from the government for work-related training – are under unprecented scrutiny. The training policy which carries the highest costs to the Exchequer – much more than subsidies for apprenticeships, for instance – is tax relief on employer-provided training. This…
The UK is a very unequal country, and this extreme inequality is the result of major changes in the income distribution over the last thirty-five years, in particular large increases in inequality under the Thatcher government in the 1980s At the same time, according to recent data from the British Social Attitudes survey, three-quarters of…
In April 2010, a new top rate of income tax of 50% on gross incomes above £150,000 per year was introduced in the UK, having been legislated for back in 2009. Are the right-wing bloggers who insist it has not increased revenues correct? What evidence is there and what does it show?
Guest post by Tim Horton and Howard Reed Earlier this week our TUC report “Where the money goes“, which shows that the coalition government’s planned spending cuts are likely to impact much more heavily on the poorest UK households than the richest, was subject to robust criticism by Simon McGrath at Lib Dem voice. In…
Every year at Budget time, we are accustomed to seeing detailed analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and other commentators on how the Chancellor’s tax, benefit and tax credit changes will affect us. For example, the recent emergency budget was subject to fine-grained analysis from the IFS which produced the conclusion that George Osborne’s…
The severe recession precipitated by the banking crisis of 2008 means the economy is likely to dominate policy debate in this election to a much greater extent than for any election since 1992, or even further back. But how will the economic crisis affect people’s views on the way the economy should move forward? For…