Reports

The European Commission has proposed a fundamental reform of VAT in member states, aimed at establishing a durable, or ӤefinitiveԬ VAT regime, compatible with the requirements of the increasingly integrated European single market. Contrary to the expectations of many commentators, the proposals for the definitive regime have not simply revived the Commission's 1987 proposals for the post-1992 VAT regime. Instead, there are some striking new proposals ֠including a single VAT ӤomicileԠfor each business engaged in Europe-wide trade. This commentary describes the rationale of the Commission's new proposals, and compares it with the current ӴransitionalԠregime and other available alternatives.

Are the provision and the extent of work-related training in the UK affected by the amount of job-to-job mobility among the work-force? Conversely, does receiving different types of work-related training make employees more or less likely to move jobs? This report examines both these questions in detail using panel data from the British Labour Force Survey and the National Child Development Survey.

It is widely accepted that an accurate assessment of the extent to which graduates benefit from higher education is crucial for the effective development of policy in this area. For the first time in the UK, this report examines two dimensions of labour market success (employment and wages) in the early 1990s for a group of 33-year-olds who undertook higher education and compares their performance with a similarly-aged group who obtained at least one (and alternatively at least two) A level qualifications but did not proceed into higher education.

This commentary discusses the background to the policy, presents the economic arguments for and against the levy, and examines some of the issues about how the levy might actually operate in practice.

Labor force participation of men over age 50 fell sharply in the UK between the early 1970s and early 1990s.

In this report we describe the charitable giving behaviour of UK households over the last two decades.

The Green Budget outlines the macroeconomic background, assesses the fiscal stance, and then considers a wide range of tax and spending issues that will be on the Chancellor's pre-budget agenda.

Recommendations for the way Parliament handles Tax Simplification Bills are made in this report by a working party of the Tax Law Review Committee.

The main conclusions of this report are that tax legislation should be written in plain English, that the Government should publish explanatory memoranda with all Finance Bills, that the project already announced by the Government, to rewrite existing tax legislation in plain English should go ahead as long as it produces worthwhile improvements in understanding, and that in the longer term, primary tax legislation should be drafted in terms of general principles.

In this report the Tax Law Review Committee advocates a number of proposals for the thorough overhaul of the tax appeals system. The UK does not have a single system of tax appeals but a number of systems, the details of which differ according to the tax and there is a maze of provisions that can baffle taxpayers and practitioners alike which can affect access to the system and the cost of tax appeals.

The Green Budget looks at the Chancellor's options for the Budget.

This report analyses the changing economic positions of tenants in subsidised public housing. It shows how low their incomes are today, how these low incomes interact with higher rents and the housing benefit system to reduce their returns to work and looks at a number of reforms to the benefit system.

Work Related training is currently at the top of the political and public policy agenda. The report looks at who gets work related training in Britain, the effect it has on the subsequent employment prospects of men and women, the wage payoffs to different types of work related training, and whether it improves the wages prospects of relatively low skilled individuals.

This report of the 1993 IFS Residential Conference considers the administrative issues that face the tax system in the 1990s. Speakers dealt with the implications of the move to self-assessment, the adoption of a rulings procedure, tax appeals and general anti-avoidance rules. International aspects of tax administration and compliance were also considered.

Devolution and regional government are once again at the centre of policy debate in Britain. This reports considers the economic issues in designing a system of regional government, and its fiscal implications for the residents of the regions of Britain.

Is Britain a highly mobile society, or are affluence and poverty largely transmitted from one generation to the next? This report suggests that the economic standing of parents is an extremely important determinant of where their children end up in the income distribution.

This report studies the demand for private health insurance in the UK using data from the British Social Attitudes Survey.