Much of the debate over inequality in the UK has focused on household incomes. This study provides details of trends in household spending levels. It finds that the inequality of household expenditures has risen much more slowly over the 1980s than the inequality of household incomes.
This report looks at some of the economic issues surrounding the current system of alcohol taxes in the UK and considers how far current taxes on alcohol are sustainable as European integration proceeds.
The gap between those who earn the most and those who earn the least in the UK is growing rapidly and in 1992 was larger than it had been at any time this century. It is one of the major factors underlying the rise in the inequality of household income and in poverty levels. This, together with its implications about the way the labour market is changing, makes it one of the most important issues facing policymakers today.
This report provides, for the first time ever, a consistently defined picture of living standards in the UK over the last three decades. Looking in detail at patterns in income inequality, and at the changing fortunes of the richest and the poorest, this report puts the trends of the 1980s into the context of 30 years.
This book aims to unravel the complexities of pension policy and provide answers or suggest alternative options to the major issues facing policymakers.
This report analyses the distributional effects of the tax changes announced in the two Budgets of 1993 and how the tax changes since the mid 1980s have changed the whole way in which the tax system works and affects individuals.
The taxation of savings in the UK is in a mess and the IFS Capital Taxes Group, set up in 1987 and chaired by Malcolm Gammie of Linklaters & Paines, makes proposals which would considerably simplify the system. Its two principal proposals, which are outlined in this report, are for an extension of the current PEP and TESSA regimes to all personal savings and the introduction of an allowance for the cost of equity finance.
Measures of average inflation like the RPI cannot, by definition, capture the true cost-of-living increases faced by individual households. This report looks at the extent to which a range of households have had different experiences of inflation over the last 15 years.
Very little is known about how households hold their savings, if they have any at all. This study shows how the amount and nature of household saving and wealth vary across different household types.
Proceedings of the IFS conference held on 24 June examining the possible solution to surplusAdvance Corporation Tax suggested by the Chancellor in his March 1993 Budget Speech.
This paper considers the impact on households of imposing VAT on domestic energy, and the extent to which the social security system will safeguard poorer households against the additional tax burden.
In this commentary we address issues of fairness and the simplicity of Council Tax. Using actual data on Council Taxes set by local authorities we examine how the Council Tax is distributed across the income range and by individual type.
The purpose of this paper is to review the differing treatment of fringe benefits for income tax and National Insurance purposes, to determine whether there should be different bases for the treatment of fringe benefits in these two areas.
The purpose of this Commentary is to evaluate the merits of different methods of measuring low income, and to comment on the results of two main sets of UK low income statistics.
