Keeping promises
Keeping promises is not something that the present government or its ministers have been very good at, with one strange omission. Promises made to not increase taxes made at the last general election have so far been kept but this is not necessarily a good thing.
I think that the government promised not to increase, income tax, NI payments and VAT, I may have missed a few but since they are the biggest sources of revenue they will do. The problem is, this may impress voters but it ties the hands of the government terribly. No one saw covid coming, so should the government be bound by those promises even during a global crisis like this one?
The chancellor has very few taxes he can raise that will bring in significant amounts of money, he has already increased corporation tax, cut by his predecessor on the. grounds that cutting the tax brought in more money. Next up is likely to be pensions, which are in desperate need of realigning, they give the vast majority of the tax advantages to the wealthy. But changing them now just reeks of desperation.
The big earners for the Treasury are income tax, NI and VAT, if they are sacrosanct the alternative is huge cuts in spending, at a time when the country needs far more spending on health and education to repair the covid damage.
Ironically, with a Labour leader as bad as Jeremy Corbyn these promises were probably unnecessary, but the Chancellor is saddled with them now and everyone will feel the consequences.
https://jonty.substack.com/