Stuart Adam

IFS immediate reaction to the Prime Minister's announcement about social care.

It has been widely reported that the government will announce an increase in National Insurance contributions (NICs) to pay for increased funding for health and social care. This observation examines the effects of increasing NICs compared to increasing income tax.

Taxes are often the subject of debate; that is as it should be. But those debates need to be well-informed to produce sensible policy outcomes.

The ‘gig economy’ has grown and risen up the policy agenda in recent years. The associated growth in people working through their own businesses and in work happening through platforms highlights difficult questions about when to have boundaries in the tax system and where to put them.

Taxes are often the subject of debate; that is as it should be. But those debates need to be well-informed to produce sensible policy outcomes.

For the first time, and co-funded by the Scottish Policy Foundation, the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a range of Scottish Election Briefing Notes on tax, benefits and public spending, and the parties plans for the coming parliamentary term. We presented the main findings of our analysis ahead of the election at a live webinar, in partnership with the University of Glasgow.

Scottish Labour set out a vision for big expansion of the welfare state - with no sense of how much this would eventually cost or how it would be paid for

The Scottish Conservatives offer extra spending on the NHS and a range of targeted measures – but an ambition to cut income tax looks unlikely to be realised without cuts to at least some services.

The SNP’s manifesto offers big gains to a number of targeted groups in Scotland - but would involve difficult trade-offs in a tight budgetary environment.

Are there any common themes in how the current Scottish Government has used these powers? Who are the winners and losers from the reforms it has under

IFS researchers presented their initial analysis of the Chancellor's announcements on the public finances, spending on public services, and the tax and the benefit system on Thursday 4 March at an online briefing.

The tax system discourages employment, investment and risk-taking. It needs reform, say Stuart Adam and Helen Miller.

At this event we discussed findings from a new report, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, which sets out the problems with the current tax treatment of business owners’ incomes and investment and discusses how the government could take practical steps towards fixing them.