Government finances and spending

Presentation of "Tax Evasion and the Minimum Wage" at the OECD Economics Department.

In this briefing note, we update and extend previous IFS analysis, to consider how employment, incomes, benefit claims and council tax payments have evolved over a longer period and have varied geographically, and draw out key implications for local government.

By the time the pandemic is over, most children across the UK will have missed over half a year of normal, in-person schooling. This observation sets out the economic case for a massive national plan to address this crisis.

Remember, every time someone calls for more money for the NHS, or social care, or universal credit, as it seems just about everyone is nowadays, they are also implicitly calling for higher taxes in the long run. That’s a less exciting thing to call for. And these issues of tax design may be particularly unexciting. But bigger spending without better taxes will cost us much dearer than it should.

This paper measures the impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis and the resulting lockdown on formal firms in Honduras, using monthly value-added tax records for January 2018 to August 2020.

This short briefing note sets out what we know about those excluded from the government's Self-Employment Income Support Scheme and what options the government has for extending it to them.

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.

The temporary £20 per week increase in Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit enacted at the start of the pandemic is due to expire at the end of March. Some campaigners have called for it to be extended for another year or made permanent, while the government are said to be considering instead a £500 one off bonus to benefit recipients.

On Thursday, the government set out its plans for council funding in England next year. In this briefing note we examine plans for both core funding and top-ups for ongoing COVID-19 related costs, and look at some of the issues looming beyond next year.

Last week, the IFS published research on how the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on consumer spending and behaviour has varied across the country. In a new observation, we consider the implications of this research for local government.

IFS researchers presented their initial analysis of the Chancellor's announcements at an online briefing the day after the 2020 Spending Review.