Fiscal Facts

Introduction

Fiscal Facts contains facts and figures about UK taxes, benefits and public spending. The tables give current and historical rates and thresholds for the main direct and indirect taxes, as well as benefit rates, numbers of claimants and expenditure levels. We also give public spending details for the UK and some comparative figures for OECD countries.

This work is funded by the ESRC Centre for Public Policy at IFS. Any comments on these pages should be directed to contacts named above.

Click on the links below for lists of the tables available.

Tax Tables

Benefit Tables

Fiscal Aggregates

Poverty, inequality and living standards

Tax measures introduced in each Budget and PBR (since 1979)

These briefing notes discuss the details of the tax and benefit system, public spending and the fiscal rules. They are updated regularly to to take into account any changes the government makes.

A survey of the UK tax system updated December 2006	This paper describes the main components of the current UK tax system, the revenue raised from different taxes, and discusses how the tax system has changed over the last 27 years.
A survey of the UK benefit system updated December 2007	Similarly, this paper describes all the main benefits in the UK system, giving details of rates and allowances, as well as numbers and types of claimants and levels of expenditure.
A survey of UK local government finance July 2007	This document provides an overview of the current system of local government finance in the UK. It is funded under the ESRC Impact Grants Scheme.
A survey of public spending in the UK September 2004	This Briefing Note provides an overview of public spending in the UK. It describes the components of public spending and examines trends in expenditure.
The government's fiscal rules updated November 2006	This short paper describes the government's two fiscal rules and discusses the uncertainty inherent in forecasting the public finances.

The two papers below take a longer-term view of the UK fiscal stance and of trends in taxation and spending. They involve a historical perspective, so will not be updated on a regular basis.

Measuring UK fiscal stance since the Second World War June 2002	In this note, the authors examine how we might measure the fiscal stance in terms of the scale of the public deficit. The paper also tries to isolate the effects of government policy as opposed to the economic cycle.
Long-term trends in British taxation and spending June 2002	This briefing note looks at changes in levels of public spending since 1948, outlining where and in what ways the money has been spent. It also charts the levels and sources of tax revenue.