18+ hour, 13+ min ago (763+ words) The high-value council tax surcharge may only raise "400m but it's the best opportunity for a bigger, fairer tax on wealth Rachel Reeves won little credit last week for lifting the lid on one of the most heated tax debates of the past three decades. Who in their right mind would consider engaging in the fight that would inevitably lead to some of the richest people in the land calling for your head? Gordon Brown ran scared and so, too, did countless Tory chancellors. Yet Reeves has put her hand in the fire, saying in the budget that she would revalue about 2.4m of the most valuable homes in England with a view to slapping a "mansion tax" " an escalating surcharge " on about 100,000 of them from April 2028. As a revamp of council tax, it constitutes baby steps, as the Institute for Fiscal…...

1+ day, 10+ hour ago (1217+ words) JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs to expand UK presence after sector was spared from higher taxes in budget Over canap's of beef and stilton pie, bone marrow gravy and mushy peas, the financiers at JP Morgan's New York headquarters held their champagne flutes aloft for a toast: "His majesty the king. Just days before Rachel Reeves's budget " amid the chancellor's efforts to soothe business fears and bond market jitters " Jamie Dimon, the Wall Street banking company's boss was hosting a birthday celebration for King Charles at it's new $3bn (2.3bn) Manhattan headquarters. Despite the union jack emblazoned on the skyscraper, the king was not there. Varun Chandra, the prime minister's envoy, however, was among the 400 guests. Dispatched, according to the Financial Times, to reassure the JP Morgan boss of Labour's pro-business stance. This week " hours after banks were spared a tax rise…...

1+ day, 11+ hour ago (220+ words) Let's set the record straight on the cause of our economic woes and inability to control immigration, writes Robert Gildea. Plus a letter from Rachel Foggitt A public inquiry on the management of Brexit would set the record straight, and maybe the BBC could run an impartial series for the 10th anniversary of the vote, making it easier for the government to show the courage and leadership to take us back into the EU.Robert GildeaProfessor emeritus of modern history, University of Oxford Jonathan Freedland is right to point the finger at Brexit as the cause of much of our current economic difficulties, and has some'good suggestions for addressing this. However, I disagree with his assertion that we don't have the money to fund our ailing public services. As the sixth-richest country in the world we absolutely do have the money....

1+ day, 15+ hour ago (548+ words) Clarification creates prospect of two-tier system for retirees solely on new state pension and those on private schemes People who rely only on their state pension for their income will not have to pay tax on it, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has said, creating the prospect of a two-tier system for those in retirement. The new state pension is set to rise to "241.30 a week next April, putting the annual income for someone receiving the standard payment at "12,547 " just below the personal tax allowance of "12,570 a year. The freezing of tax thresholds means that if the state pension rises by just 2.5%, from April 2027 it will fall above the threshold and someone receiving it will face paying tax on "292 of their payments " a bill of "58. Wednesday's budget document included a commitment to "ease the administrative burden for pensioners whose sole income…...

1+ day, 20+ hour ago (758+ words) Official forecaster's chair says chancellor knew about revised predictions well before her budget change of heart The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has cast doubt on claims Rachel Reeves dropped plans to raise income tax in this week's budget because of rosier forecasts, pointing out she knew about these well before the change of heart. In a move likely to exacerbate tensions with the Treasury, the OBR chair, Richard Hughes, has taken what he acknowledged was the "unusual step" of writing to the Treasury select committee to explain how its forecast evolved, "given the circumstances in this case". Reeves's budget was preceded by a flurry of speculation and briefing, even before the OBR accidentally made its documents available online earlier than intended on Wednesday. The chancellor herself took the rare step of delivering an early morning "scene setter" speech, on…...

2+ day, 18+ hour ago (494+ words) Thinktank predicts backloading may force Labour to abandon tax rises or spending cuts Rachel Reeves has positioned Labour to fight the next general election with tax increases and spending cuts that resemble a work of "fiscal fiction, an analysis by leading economists has warned. In its verdict on the chancellor's budget, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the chancellor had chosen a high-risk strategy by backloading her plans to start just before voters go the polls in 2029. Helen Miller, the thinktank's director, said the budget plans would involve "near-heroic restraint in an election year and suggested that Labour may ultimately be forced to abandon some of its tax-raising measures or planned spending cuts. "[It is] a backloaded set of tax rises that almost entirely delay the pain. It's reminiscent of the fiscal fictions of recent years. I hope this…...

2+ day, 19+ hour ago (661+ words) Move will have greater impact on living standards of taxpayers in bottom half of income scale, thinktanks say Rachel Reeves will punish poorer households more than the better off through the freezing of income tax thresholds announced in Wednesday's budget, two major thinktanks have said. The Resolution Foundation said the freeze on income tax thresholds for a further three years to 2031 would harm the living standards of taxpayers in the bottom half of the income scale. More than 1.7 million workers will be dragged into either paying tax for the first time or pushed into a higher band by an additional three-year freeze on income tax and national insurance thresholds. Reeves conceded it would hit "working people" but denied it constituted breaking the Labour manifesto and said it would bring in "12.4bn by 2030-31. Ruth Curtice, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation,…...

2+ day, 19+ hour ago (507+ words) Richard Hughes, head of Office for Budget Responsibility, says he has apologised to chancellor for "letting people down" How Rachel Reeves"s budget was leaked 40 minutes early The chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility has said he felt "personally mortified" by the early release of its budget documents and said the former boss of the National Cyber Security Centre will be involved in an investigation into the incident. Richard Hughes said he had written to the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and the chair of the Treasury select committee, Meg Hillier, to apologise, and launched the inquiry. "I felt personally mortified by what happened. The OBR prides itself on our professionalism. We let people down yesterday and we"ll make sure it doesn"t happen again," he told BBC Radio 4"s Today Programme. Ciaran Martin, the former chief executive of the…...

2+ day, 22+ hour ago (666+ words) Rachel Reeves targets UK's wealthiest in "26bn tax-raising budget We also have budget analysis from research institute NIESR (the National Institute of Economic and Social Research) to digest. They identify that freezing the income tax thresholds until the end of the decade will fall on poorer workers the most (a point also made by Resolution Foundation this morning). [Reminder: higher-rate threshold and additional-rate threshold are to be frozen at "12,570, "50,270 and "125,140, respectively until 2030]. NIESR also critises the "lack of economic vision' in the budget: Today's Budget locks in a high-tax, high-debt steady state in a world of low productivity growth and higher interest rates. Even the historically large tax share of GDP now planned is only just enough to stabilise " not reduce " a debt ratio stuck around 100 per cent of GDP for the foreseeable future. Distributionally, the extension of the income tax…...

3+ day, 2+ hour ago (391+ words) The left-leaning Resolution Foundation says freezing income tax thresholds less progressive than raising income tax rates by 1p Ask the Guardian your budget questions Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, has said that "an external person" may have been involved in the accidental release of its budget report yesterday. In an interview on the Today programme, he said that he had written to the chancellor apologising for the fact that the document became public about 40 minutes before she announced the budget " allowing people to learn all the details in advance. He also said that that Prof Ciaran Martin, the former head of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre, will be involved in the OBR's investigation into what happened. The documents weren't published on our webpage itself. It appears there was a link that someone was able to access…...