The left-leaning Resolution Foundation says freezing income tax thresholds less progressive than raising income tax rates by 1p
Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, has said that “an external person” may have been involved in the accidental release of its budget report yesterday.
In an interview on the Today programme, he said that he had written to the chancellor apologising for the fact that the document became public about 40 minutes before she announced the budget – allowing people to learn all the details in advance.
The documents weren’t published on our webpage itself. It appears there was a link that someone was able to access – an external person.
We need to get to the bottom of what exactly happened. We’re going to do a full investigation. There’ll be a full report to parliament.
The manifesto tax pledge has cost working people. Having previously hinted at raising income tax rates, the chancellor chose instead to freeze personal tax thresholds for three more years. But raising all rates by 1p would have been less costly than freezing thresholds for anyone with an income below £35,000. Indeed, all but the top 10% of the income distribution are worse off because of opting for threshold freezes over rate rises (which raise similar amounts of revenue).