A mess, and getting worse

Government is a game of two halves — the spending half and the taxing half. If the latter isn’t pretty much as big as the former then in the long run we’ll be in trouble. To fund all the schools and hospitals, police and armed forces, roads and pensions, we pay more than £600bn in tax each year. That’s about £4 in every £10 generated by the economy.

The tax half really ought to get as much attention from policymakers, parliament and the public as the spending half. If you are going to take that much money from people and businesses, you are going to have quite an effect on their incomes, their behaviour and their welfare. But tax is different. While other bits of government have strategy papers, white papers and green papers by the bucketful, no recent government has set out a proper tax strategy.