Income taxes

Income taxes

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Income taxes

Showing 81 – 100 of 227 results

Working paper graphic

Principles and practice of taxing small business

Working Paper

The UK taxes business income at much lower rates than employment income. In this paper we describe the problems caused by that differentiation and assess the main arguments used to defend it. We summarise the Mirrlees Review’s proposals for radical reform that would align tax rates across legal forms while protecting incentives to save and invest. Finally, we consider the obstacles to implementing such a radical reform and suggest an approach to making progress in practice.

10 December 2019

Publication graphic

How do other countries raise more in tax than the UK?

Report

The UK raised 35% of national income in tax in 2018–19. Figure 1 shows that tax as a share of national income has fluctuated between around 30% and 35% of national income since the end of the second world war and been rising since the early 1990s. Tax revenues are now, just, higher as a share of national income than at any point since the late 1960s.

19 July 2019

Article graphic

Cutting taxes on income would make UK more unusual relative to other countries

Comment

In a bid to become the next prime minister, both Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt say they plan to increase the point at which people start paying National Insurance Contributions (NICs). This move would make the UK’s tax system even more different to those in most other developed countries in two ways.

19 July 2019

Publication graphic

Dragging people into higher rates of tax

Report

This Saturday (6 April 2019) marks the start of a new tax year. Unlike many other countries, the UK routinely – and sensibly – uprates the cash values of most tax thresholds and benefit rates each year in line with inflation, in order to maintain their real value.

4 April 2019

Parliament Street

What are the options for raising taxes?

Explainer
If the Chancellor wants to meet his commitments to eliminate the deficit, and provide extra funding for the NHS, he will need to lower spending elsewh

17 October 2018

Book graphic

Options for raising taxes

Book Chapter
This Green Budget chapter considers where the Chancellor might look if he wanted to increase tax receipts by about 1% of national income – enough to pay for the promised increase in NHS spending. We investigate how various possible tax rises differ in the revenue they would raise, the people who would pay them, and the extent to which they would weaken work incentives and improve or worsen other distortions.

16 October 2018

Article graphic

Lack of employment rights doesn’t justify lower taxes for the self-employed

Comment

There is a current debate about whether the definition of self-employment should be aligned across tax and employment law. At present there is a rather complex situation – illustrated by a recent court case involving Pimlico Plumbers – in which an individual can be deemed a worker in employment law but self-employed in tax law. The definitions matter because they determine who gets access to employment rights and who gets preferential tax treatment.

19 June 2018

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Scottish income tax diverges further from rest of UK to raise more from high earners

Comment

For the new 2018–19 tax year, the Scottish higher-rate threshold has fallen further behind that in the UK, and two new income tax bands have been added in Scotland while the higher- and additional-rates have been increased. While most Scots will be either unaffected or pay slightly less in tax, overall the change will raise revenue as a result of higher earners paying more. This observation argues that while these changes represent small tweaks to the system rather than a major overhaul, differences between the Scottish and UK income tax systems could have significant implications for taxpayer behaviour going forward.

6 April 2018

Article graphic

Is our tax system fair? It depends...

Comment

The basic question of whether our tax system is fair is at the heart of many of our public debates. Discussions of whether ‘the rich’ or companies are paying their ‘fair share’ is regularly in, or underlying, the news headlines. These are important questions. If we want to ensure that we can raise the revenues to pay for the public goods and services that we all want, we need to be able to have sensible debates about how much tax we raise, who we raise it from and how we spend it.

3 November 2017

Publication graphic

Who does and doesn’t pay taxes?

Report

This briefing note summarises new research on which types of people under-report the taxes they owe, and what effects audits have on government revenue.

26 October 2017