Briefing and analysis

Chancellor George Osborne delivered his 2012 Budget on Wednesday 21 March. On Thursday 22 March the Institute for Fiscal Studies held a lunchtime briefing at The Venue, University of London Union. The presentation provided an opportunity to hear a considered view of the Chancellor's announcements from Institute staff.

These are the presentations from the event:

• Paul Johnson, Opening remarks: tax changes do not amount to a reform programme
• Carl Emmerson, Small changes this Parliament; more big welfare cuts next?
• Robert Joyce, Tax and benefit changes, excluding those affecting mainly the very rich
• James Browne, The 50p income tax rate
• Stuart Adam, Business tax, stamp duty and anti-avoidance

Useful publications and resources

Green Budget 2012 analysis and presentation slides

The IFS Green Budget 2012 was produced in collaboration with Oxford Economics and supported by the ESRC - focused on the policy challenges confronting the Chancellor of the Exchequer in advance of the 2012 Budget. IFS researchers examine the outlook for the public finances, assess a number of the key issues relating to the planned public spending cuts and discuss possible decisions on taxation. Oxford Economics analysts look at the outlook for the global and UK macro-economy. You can download the full document, slides and videoed presentations from the IFS Green Budget page.

Public finances

• The IFS produces a monthly bulletin analysing recent developments in the government's public finance figures.
• In The challenge of a generation, an article written for Prospect Magazine, Paul Johnson argues that genuinely big decisions need to be taken about how much revenue we raise, how much we spend and how we allocate it.
• Should public sector pay awards vary locally?, Carl Emmerson and Wenchao Jin examine such a policy in a presentation delivered at 11 Downing Street.
• In a presentation at LSE and subsequently the BBC, Carl Emmerson explores the options available to the Chancellor in his 2012 Budget.

Welfare benefits and living standards

• IFS researchers have compiled a list of tax and benefit changes in each Budget since 1979.
• In an IFS observation Thoughts on a benefits cap, Robert Joyce examines what a benefit cap will achieve and whether this policy is the best approach to take to deal with benefit payments the Government deems excessive.
• An IFS Briefing Note, Tax and benefit reforms due in 2012-13, and the outlook for household incomes, gives an overview of the tax and benefit reforms currently planned for the coming financial year and their likely impact on household incomes.
• An IFS Commentary, Child and working-age poverty from 2010 to 2020, presents forecasts of relative and absolute income poverty in the UK among children and working-age adults for each year between 2010-11 and 2015-16, and for 2020-21.
• In Poverty and Inequality in the UK: 2011, IFS researchers assess the changes to average incomes, inequality and poverty that have occurred since 1997, with a particular focus on the changes that have occurred in the latest year of data (2009-10).

Taxation

• In an IFS observation, James Browne examines the proposed £10,000 personal allowance and asks who would it benefit and whether it would boost the economy.
• In the IFS Green Budget 2012, IFS researchers examine what is known and what will be known about the 50p income tax rate.
• In Tax by Design, the Mirrlees Review editorial team present a picture of coherent tax reform. Its aim is to identify the characteristics of a good tax system, to assess the extent to which the UK tax system conforms to these ideals, and to recommend how it might realistically be reformed in that direction.

Fiscal facts

• Historic data on spending, revenues and borrowing (updated February 2011)
• A survey of the UK tax system (updated November 2011)
• A survey of the UK benefit system (updated November 2010)
• A survey of public spending in the UK (updated September 2009)
• A survey of UK local government finance (July 2007)

Election 2010

Our analysis for the election looked at Labour's record and at the parties' proposals. The work was funded by the Nuffield Foundation.

Official documentation

The Treasury's home page links to previous and current Budget documentation. The new Office for Budget Responsibility's publications and economic and fiscal forecasts can be found here.