National Insurance contributions

Presented at the 'Manifesto analysis: the parties’ tax and benefit plans' event on Thursday 28th April 2015.

Presented at the 'Manifesto analysis: the parties’ tax and benefit plans' event on Thursday 28th April 2015.

Presented at the 'Manifesto analysis: the public finances' event at IFS.

Presented at the 'Manifesto analysis: the public finances' event at IFS.

This presentation was given to an audience comprised of civil society and charity staff and Northern Ireland Assembly researchers on 27 March 2015.

This article was published in The House magazine on 10 April 2015.

This presentation was given at the RES conference 2015.

The Conservative Party have claimed that under Labour there would be a £3,028 tax rise for every working household. This new observation explains this number and assesses whether this would actually be the case.

The BBC has reported that civil servants and Conservative ministers have been holding discussions about possible cuts to benefits. This observation provides a brief discussion of these potential reforms and sets them in their wider context.

As part of its deficit reduction programme, the coalition government has made numerous tax changes whose direct impact is to reduce borrowing by an estimated £16.4 billion in 2015–16. This Observation – and the accompanying new Election Briefing Note – shows how all this activity has done little to improve the structure of the tax system. Plenty of challenges remain for whoever wins the election in May.

This presentation was delivered at a seminar at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin on 5 March 2015.

Following David Cameron's announcement that universal pensioner benefits will again be protected, should the Conservative Party win the election, Andrew Hood examines the support given to pensioners in an article published in the Daily Telegraph. Over the past 30 years, pensioner incomes have caught up with those of non-pensioners. The data show very clearly that pensioners are now no more likely to be in poverty than the rest of the population. And after accounting for housing costs, the typical pensioner is now better off than the typical non-pensioner.

This presentation was delivered to audiences comprised of academics and policymakers at The London School of Economics and Political Science and the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Sheffield, on 21 and 28 January 2015, respectively.

The IFS Green Budget 2015 shows that a future government would have to implement much deeper cuts in social security spending than have so far been suggested to find the £12 billion reduction in spending sought by the Conservatives.