Briefing

The Chancellor presented his Pre-Budget Report at 3.30pm on Monday 24th November. IFS held a briefing on the following day, Tuesday 25th November, at 1pm.

• Robert Chote's opening remarks
• Tax and benefit changes and distributional analysis, Mike Brewer and James Browne
• PBR 2008 and the public finances, Carl Emmerson
• PBR 2008 and the fiscal rules, Gemma Tetlow
• Indirect and business taxes, Stuart Adam

Useful publications

Public finances and the fiscal stance

• Recent comment and analysis
  IFS staff outline current concerns in recent newspaper articles, including in the Times, Telegraph and Guardian.
• The UK public finances: ready for recession?
  This Briefing Note looks at a couple of key indicators of the health of the public finances in historical and international perspective.
• Alistair Darling's mini-Budget: can he afford it?
  This note assesses the impact of recent tax and benefit changes on the public finances and the economy.
• Green Budget 2008
  Two chapters from the January 2008 Green Budget discuss the evolution of the public finances under Labour, and the current fiscal framework.
• Monthly bulletins
  Since October 2002 IFS has produced monthly bulletins analysing the government's public finance figures.
• PBR 2008: setting the scene; two presentations, one by Robert Chote and one by Carl Emmerson, outline the Governments' current fiscal position and economic outlook.

Personal taxes and living standards

• The 10% tax rate: where next?
  This note looked at the winners and losers of these changes to the tax system and the government's efforts to compensate those who lost out.
• Racing away? Income inequality and the evolution of high incomes
  This Briefing Note provides an analysis of the characteristics of high-income individuals and how their incomes have evolved over time.
• The inflation experience of older households
  This Commentary looks at the inflation experience for different groups of households, focusing in particular on pensioner households.
• Poverty and inequality in the UK: 2008
  An update on trends in living standards, income inequality and poverty.
• Options for Tax Credit reform
  IFS was asked by Barnardo's to model three reforms of the tax credit system, each designed to reduce child poverty to the government's 2010/11 target in a different way.

Fiscal Facts

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.

There are also three regularly updated briefing notes:

• A survey of the UK tax system (updated December 2006)
• A survey of UK local government finance (July 2007)
• A survey of the UK benefit system (updated December 2007)

• Measuring UK fiscal stance since the Second World War
• Long-term trends in British taxation and spending