Tax policy and the 1991 budget

Prior to this year's Budget, the almost universal expectation was that the Chancellor would not attempt to make any changes to the tax system. The possible exception to this appeared to be some moves to appear 'green', perhaps by using the tax system to discourage the use of motor vehicles, particularly large ones. In the event these expectations were confounded. Not only did we see a sharp increase in central government taxation at the expense of local government, funded by the first rise in the VAT rate since 1979, but also a long-overdue widening of the base for National Insurance contributions to company cars and the restriction of mortgage interest relief to the basic rate. Also announced were increases in company car scale charges, increases in child benefit and the freezing of the married couple's allowance. Here we try to assess the impact of these changes both from the point of view of distributional objectives and from the point of view of economic efficiency. Initially each change is assessed in isolation before an attempt is made to look at the Budget as a whole.