Budget 2013

The IFS Green Budget 2013, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, was published on 6th February. IFS researchers examined the outlook for the public finances; considered the recent trends in productivity; assessed a number of the key issues relating to cuts to spending on benefits, tax credits and public services; considered possible decisions on personal taxation and discussed issues around the revenues raised from corporation tax. Oxford Economics analysts provided analysis of the outlook for the global and UK economies. You can download the full document, slides and videoed presentations from the IFS Green Budget page.

The Autumn Statement 2012 was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, on Wednesday 5 December. IFS researchers presented their analysis the following day and slides can be found here.

• An IFS briefing note examined the outlook for the public finances in the run-up to the Autumn Statement.
• In a Public Finance Magazine article, Biting the bullet on fiscal targets, Carl Emmerson and Gemma Tetlow ask whether the Chancellor should abandon one of his fiscal rules in the Autumn Statement.
• In The Fiscal Challenge Ahead, IFS researchers outline the significant challenges we face as a result of the spending pressures created by population ageing and a likely loss of tax revenues from motoring and north sea oil and gas companies.

• Paul Johnson and Rowena Crawford examine what is happening to the composition of public spending in The rapidly changing state, an IFS observation.
• In an IFS observation, researchers examine the Chancellor’s stated intention to reduce welfare expenditure by a further £10 billion per year by 2016–17 and explore where the cuts might be made.
• IFS researchers produced a Briefing Note, examining the changing composition of public spending. They find that the shape of the state today is very different from that of 30 years ago and that spending on health, pensions and long term care is set to take up a far greater share of public expenditure unless there is significant reform, or unless total spending is significantly increased.
• A briefing note on Pensioners and the tax and benefit system, examines the ways in which the proposals produced by the Dilnot Commission on the Funding of Care and Support could be funded.
• A report on NHS and social care funding: the outlook to 2021/22 examines what can be expected once the current unprecedented period of broadly flat NHS funding in real terms ends in 2014-15.

• IFS researchers have compiled a list of tax and benefit changes in each Budget since 1979.
• In two recent observations, IFS researchers examine The Effects of the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill and review the key features of the new 'High Income Child Benefit charge'.
• We examine the pensions White Paper detailing plans to replace the current Basic State Pension and State Second Pension with a single state pension in an IFS observation.
• Here we discuss the merits of two policies: the reintroduction of a 10% income tax rate on a narrow band of income and a ‘mansion tax’ on residential properties worth more than £2 million.
• Stuart Adam and James Browne examine proposed reforms to council tax benefit in an IFS commentary. They look at the likely effects of localising the system of support for council tax, the distribution of funding cuts, options for local authorities and how the reformed system of council tax support could be designed to work alongside the government’s proposed introduction of Universal Credit.
• In a Fiscal Studies journal article, researchers analyse the likely effects of introducing a new Universal Credit.
• In a report, Fairer by design: efficient tax reform for those on low to middle incomes, Paul Johnson draws on the Mirrlees Review of taxation to identify key reforms that could help to ease the squeeze on living standards by making the UK tax and benefit systems both more efficient and fair.
• In Tax by Design, the Mirrlees Review editorial team present a picture of coherent tax reform. Its aim is to identify the characteristics of a good tax system, to assess the extent to which the UK tax system conforms to these ideals, and to recommend how it might realistically be reformed in that direction.

• In “Really, we’re in it together”, Paul Johnson looks at the extent to which falling household incomes have been equally spread across the income distribution.
• In Poverty and Inequality in the UK: 2012, IFS researchers assess the changes to average incomes, inequality and poverty, with a particular focus on the changes that have occurred in the latest year of data (2010-11).
• In an IFS observation Measuring and addressing child poverty, IFS researchers take the opportunity to reflect upon what child poverty is and how it should be measured, and to discuss current government thinking in this policy area.
• A chapter from the Green Budget 2013, Tax and welfare reforms planned for 2013-14, gives an overview of the tax and welfare reforms currently planned for the coming financial year and their likely impact on household incomes.
• An IFS Commentary, Child and working-age poverty from 2010 to 2020, presents forecasts of relative and absolute income poverty in the UK among children and working-age adults for each year between 2010-11 and 2015-16, and for 2020-21.

Our analysis for the election looked at the Labour Government’s record and at the three main UK parties' proposals. The work was funded by the Nuffield Foundation.