Taxes and benefits

The IFS Green Budget looks at the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the Chancellor aims to secure a lasting recovery and deliver on the Government’s other objectives and priorities.

Taxes can be used to better align the private costs and benefits of motoring with the social costs and benefits. This report sets out some key issues and policy options for ‘green’ motor taxes in SSA. It provides an overview of the principles of motor taxation, describes the policy context in SSA, and discusses the potential for policy options that could improve existing tax systems in the region.

How does the taxation of housing fit into how we analyse other taxes and the tax system as a whole, and what can we conclude about how it should be reformed? This was a Keynote Presentation given at the Tax Research Network Annual Conference, at Aston University and online, on 9 September 2021.

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.

Presented "The Impact of Payroll Tax Subsidies: Theory and Evidence" at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

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.