Benefits

This paper measures the impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis and the resulting lockdown on formal firms in Honduras, using monthly value-added tax records for January 2018 to August 2020.

At this event we discussed findings from a new report, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, which sets out the problems with the current tax treatment of business owners’ incomes and investment and discusses how the government could take practical steps towards fixing them.

The temporary £20 per week increase in Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit enacted at the start of the pandemic is due to expire at the end of March. Some campaigners have called for it to be extended for another year or made permanent, while the government are said to be considering instead a £500 one off bonus to benefit recipients.

The last few days have seen free school meals in England rocket to the front of the papers, as many MPs, campaign groups and businesses have lined up behind Marcus Rashford’s proposals to extend free school meal vouchers through the school holidays until Easter next year. While the motion was defeated last week, the Labour party has promised to bring the motion again – and several Conservative MPs have already indicated that it may receive a more sympathetic hearing the second time around.

Choices over benefits policy are never easy. There are unavoidable trade-offs between cost, generosity and incentives. This year offers an opportunity to improve what we’ve got and to make a conscious choice over how generous we want the system to be.

In this webinar, IFS researchers discussed the options the government faces as it considers unwinding, adjusting, or making permanent the temporary Covid-19 benefit increases; and the opportunities this moment presents to address issues with the system that existed prior to the onset of the crisis.

This paper explores the challenges and constraints around fiscal stimulus measures in lower-income countries, and in the context of a global pandemic, and puts forward tax, transfer and other government spending options that offer potential for success.

The COVID-19 crisis is having immediate effects on councils’ budgets as a result of increases in spending on local services and reductions in income from sales, fees and charges and commercial activities.

At this online debate, an expert panel reflected on what the future holds for capital gains tax. Could CGT be a post-covid cash cow for the Treasury or would higher rates and smaller reliefs lead to lower investment and less revenue?

This report examines how living standards – most commonly measured by households’ incomes – were changing in the UK up to approximately the eve of the current COVID-19 crisis, using the latest official household income data covering years up to 2018–19.

At this joint IFS/CIOT online debate, a panel of David Gauke, Chris Leslie, Stuart Adam and Jane McCormick looked back at the changes in taxation over the 2010s.