Taxes and benefits

A plan bold in ambition, but lacking in fiscal credibility

Wales leads on council tax revaluation – but has followed England on a range of ill-advised tax policy changes

Scotland has made its tax and benefit system more progressive than the rest of the UK’s, but unnecessarily complex and distortionary.

This comment analyses the government’s new youth employment package, which expands youth wage subsidies and introduces apprenticeship reforms.

Today’s new personal independence payment statistics show the number of new awards fell in 2025, but remains above pre-pandemic levels.

What should the government consider in the universal credit review?

What is council tax support? Who receives it and how much does it affect household incomes?

Why UK fiscal rules drive “headroom” politics, policy churn and rising debt, and how a dashboard approach could improve sustainability and debate.

Our analysis of the 2026–27 Scottish Budget highlights a difficult outlook for both spending and investment in Scotland. 

How much protection does the benefit system afford the newly unemployed? We use UK bank account data to track financial impacts of job loss.

What are IFS experts looking out for in 2026? We discuss rising unemployment, benefit reforms, and whether new technologies might improve the outlook.

We study four reforms that cut non-health-related benefit provision and find each reform led to increased disability benefit claims.

We unpack the Budget’s quieter tax changes, from EV policy to savings and investment reforms, and explore what these small shifts really mean.

From tax rises to new spending pressures, we break down the major decisions in a packed Autumn Budget and what they mean for the UK.