J. A. Kay

Local government finance has suddenly become the most acute fiscal problem of the early 1980's in Britain.

The Inland Revenue must derive a certain degree of satisfaction from the fact that it took the City the best part of a week to appreciate that one of the more obscure sections of the 1982 Finance Bill had overnight ended its favourite pastime of bed and breakfasting-a most skilful exercise in obfuscation.

The first review of the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme is currently in progress.

In our article in the July 1980 issue of Fiscal Studies, we examined the impact of the growth of North Sea oil production on the domestic economy.

There are two reasons for concern about the effect fo the tax and benefit system on incentives for low paid workers.

In a separate article (Forsyth and Kay, Fiscal Studies, No.3), we have described the gains to the British economy from the exploitation of North Sea oil reserves.

The growth of North Sea oil revenues is the most important fiscal development in the British economy in teh 1980s.

The direct tax structure of the UK has grown by continuous accretion since its principal elements were set out by Addington in 1803.

Some recent attention has been given to the so called 'Laffer Curve'.

There were two principal elements to the June 1979 budget. One was the very substantial reductions which were made in the higher rates of income tax.