UK will need to impose tax rises of £30bn to balance budget – IFS

Philip Hammond will need to impose tax rises worth at least £30bn to reach his target of balancing the public finances by 2025, undermining hopes that the chancellor will go into his autumn budget with plenty of spare cash to ease austerity, according to a leading economic thinktank.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the government could be forced to find up to £41bn in extra taxes by the middle of the next decade once the costs of Britain’s ageing population are taken into account.

The gloomy outlook is expected to put a dampener on Hammond’s assessment of the public finances, which he said in his spring statement allowed him to consider increases in spending in the autumn budget.

In an upbeat account of the economic outlook by the Treasury’s independent forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, the chancellor said he felt “Tiggerish” in contrast to the Eeyores on the Labour benches and said he would take a “balanced approach” to planned public spending cuts.

Source: theguardian