 Facts and figures about UK taxes, benefits and public spending.
Analysing government fiscal forecasts and tax and spending.
Case studies that give a flavour of the areas where IFS research has an impact on society.
Reforming the tax system for the 21st century.
A peer-reviewed quarterly journal publishing articles by academics and practitioners.
Find out where you are in the income distribution.
Resources for schools and students.
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Since its foundation in the 1960s, the IFS has been studying developments in the UK's tax and social security system. This continues to be a core part of the Institute's work, making a particularly important contribution to public debate around the government's annual set pieces of the Budget and Pre-Budget Report, and the Institute's own Green Budget. Research at the IFS concentrates on describing and analysing changes and proposed changes to the tax and social security system, and in using large cross-sectional household datasets to model the impact of reforms on individuals' incomes and behaviour. Below, we present specific projects that researchers at the IFS have worked on in recent years, although the constant need to maintain the Institute's tax and benefit model means that IFS researchers are familiar with almost all areas of personal tax and social security in the UK.
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This Commentary looks at two asset-based welfare policies and asks how they might work and what rationale lies behind them.
New work published by IFS looks at two asset-based welfare policies and asks how they might work and what rationale lies behind them.
Mike Brewer, Tom Clark and Michal Myck
In 2003: the government will introduce new tax credits to provide financial support for children and low-paid workers: the integrated child credit and the employment tax credit. The reform to support for children aims to unify existing payments in a way that provides a guaranteed stream of income for those with children, whether they are working or not. The credit for people in work will provide an income top-up for low earners - something that those without children have not benefited from before. The government has not announced the impact of the reforms on the public finances, but both will cost the exchequer money, so this Commentary considers the likely sums involved. We also examine whether the reforms look like fulfilling their stated aims: making work pay, relieving poverty and creating a new type of state support that is simpler and less intrusive for claimants.
This paper is an evaluation of the British labor market program the "New Deal for the Young Unemployed" using administrative panel data on individuals between 1982 and 1999.
Tom Clark and Julian McCrae
Tom Clark and Julian McCrae
Tom Clark, Michal Myck and Zoë Oldfield
Election briefing note 5 (2001)
John Van Reenen
In this paper I evaluate the New Deal in a historical and international context.
Tom Clark
This paper examines the history of the Labout government elected in 1974, using it as a test-case for various 'New Right' economic and political theories that suggest that government expansion eventually hits structural limits.
Tom Clark
In the November 2000 Pre-Budget Report, the government announced a major range of measures for pensioners. Some come into operation in April 2001, while others follow in 2002 and 2003. The most important aspects of the package comprised: above-inflation increases in the retirement pension; substantially above-inflation increases in the means-tested minimum income guarantee (MIG); and the introduction of a new element into the means-tested benefit system for pensioners, known as the pension credit. Overall, the package means the government will pay over �4 billion a year extra to pensioners (2000 prices) by 2003�04. It represents a very substantial redistribution in favour of pensioners, and particularly those on low incomes.
Browse publications & research
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 Started: 11 April 2011
Started: 01 November 2010
Started: 28 September 2010
Started: 17 March 2010
Started: 01 November 2009
  In light of Government objectives to increase environmental taxation, we investigate whether the UK tax system is becoming more or less ‘green’.
The IFS has made valuable contributions to the debate on VAT and its impact on the poor.
The IFS played a key role in the debate about who the tax and benefit changes in recent ‘Emergency Budget’ hit hardest.
Changes to the benefit system recommended by IFS researchers have made working less than 16 hours a week more attractive to benefit recipients.
The IFS played a key role in informing the public during the 2010 election campaign. Our comments on the parties’ tax plans were quoted by the party leaders in their debates.
The Mirrlees Review shows the importance IFS attaches to high quality empirical evidence in the design of tax and benefit system.
Our ERA analysis contributed to the evaluation literature and informed the Government about the validity of the experimental findings.
IFS evaluated the Pathways to Work programme. This work proved key to the policy debate about how to get disability benefit claimants in work.
Proposals by IFS researchers to simplify the benefit system and strengthen the incentives for low-skilled adults to work have attracted the attention of Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
IFS researchers found that the In-Work Credit encouraged lone parents to leave benefit more quickly but did not increase work retention.
An IFS economist advised a “Citizens Jury” on the welfare system, including basic facts and important issues about its purpose and structure.
IFS researchers develop a model of the Mexican tax system that will be used by the Mexican Government analysts.
IFS researchers and the World Bank plan to develop capacity and tools in developing countries for the comprehensive analysis of tax reforms
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