Briefing

The Chancellor made his Pre-Budget statement on Wednesday 6th December. A press release gives out immediate reaction of the Pre-Budget Report. Carl Emmerson and Chris Frayne explore the issues in an article in Public Finance Magazine.

IFS held a briefing on the following day; slides are available to download here:

• The public finances, Chris Frayne
• Public spending, Carl Emmerson
• Environmental taxes, Andrew Leicester
• Education spending, Luke Sibieta

Useful publications

Green Budget 2006

The IFS Green Budget 2006 examines the Chancellor's options for the Budget. Areas covered include the fiscal policy framework, the public finances and spending plans, distributional analysis, childcare policy and company taxation. The Green Budget was carried out in collaboration with Morgan Stanley and includes their analysis of the economic outlook and funding and debt management.

Public finances

Since October 2002 IFS has produced monthly bulletins analysing the government's public finance figures.

The UK tax system and the environment

A new IFS report (November 2006) examines in depth the current system of green taxes in place in the UK, their design and effectiveness, and looks at the recent history of green tax revenues and greenhouse gas emissions.

Poverty and inequality

• Micro-simulating child poverty in 2010 and 2020. A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report (July 2006) describes how micro-simulation techniques were used to forecast relative child poverty in the UK in 2010 and 2020 under various scenarios for future policy and socio-demographic change.
• The poverty trade-off: work incentives and income redistribution in Britain. A new Joseph Rowntree Foundation report (October 2006) aims to illuminate the trade-off between work incentives and redistribution.

The Pensions White Paper: who wins and who loses?

A newspaper article (August 2006) examines the proposed changes to state pensions and assesses who will win and who will lose from their implementation.

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 four briefing notes:

• A survey of the UK tax system (Briefing Note 9, updated December 2006)
• A survey of the UK benefit system (Briefing Note 13, updated December 2006)
• A survey of public spending in the UK (Briefing Note 43, September 2004)
• The government's fiscal rules, describes the government's two fiscal rules and discusses the uncertainty inherent in forecasting the public finances. (Briefing Note 16, updated November 2006)