Taxes and benefits

This policy paper was presented at the EDePo 'Improving productivity in developing countries: identifying bottlenecks and obstacles to productive investments and technology adoption' conference held at Goodenough College on the 8th and 9th July 2015.

The 8 July Budget may prove to be George Osborne’s best chance to bring in some much-needed reforms to our creaking and increasingly incoherent tax system. This observation suggests some important directions for reform and calls for an improvement in the way policy is made. If this is to be a Budget for productivity, then both a better, and a more predictable, tax system should be an important part of it.

This presentation was given as a discussion of Reuven Avi-Yonah's paper 'Reinventing the wheel: What we can learn from the Tax Reform Act of 1986' at the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation 9th Annual Symposium in Oxford on 23 June 2015.

Paul Johnson, writing for The Conversation, says that the recent general election offered the electorate a big fiscal choice over dealing with the deficit, but we weren’t confronted with the big, longer term choices that we will have to make in response to growing pressures created by an ageing population. By 2020 public spending will be much more focused on health and pensions than it was in the year 2000. That trend will continue in the coming decades and it will mean tough choices on overall spending, tax rises and spending on health and pensions.

The Conservatives’ victory in the general election means that we should shortly find out how they will find the additional benefit cuts to which they have committed. This observation, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, briefly summarises previous IFS analysis of the context for these choices and the kinds of options that are on the table.

This observation summarises the findings of new IFS research on recent trends in those receiving out of work disability benefits published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Over time, an increasing proportion of these recipients is: younger rather than older, female rather than male, and claiming benefits due to a mental or behavioural health problem rather than a physical one. Issues raised by these trends for both disability and employment policy are also discussed.

This presentation was given at a meeting of the Commission on Local Tax Reform held in Edinburgh on 19 May 2015.

In an article for the Tax Journal, Paul Johnson offers his advice to the new government on what is needed on tax policy to change it for the better.

IFS Director Paul Johnson highlights crucial gaps in the information underpinning economic and fiscal election pledges from both Labour and the Conservatives in this comment piece published in the Daily Mail newspaper.

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.

Paul Johnson raises questions about manifesto pledges on tax revenues in a piece published in the Times newspaper today.