Depending on whose forecasts you believe, in the autumn budget the UK chancellor needs to find £25-£50bn to cover day-to-day spending, let alone to raise the extra funds needed to turnaround crumbling public services or end the two-child benefit cap. Rachel Reeves is bound by a manifesto commitment not to raise the big three – income tax, national insurance or VAT – and having already slapped businesses with a national insurance rise in her inaugural budget last year, she faces having to think about creative ways to raise revenue.
The past few weeks, we have seen a bewildering parade of policies emerging from Treasury sources. These include reforms to inheritance tax, replacing stamp duty with a national proportional property tax for homes worth more than £500,000, replacing council tax with a local proportional property tax levied on house values up to £500,000 with a minimum annual bill of £800 paid by the property owner, and a potential capital gains tax (CGT) on primary residences valued at more than £1.5m.
