Here come the stealth taxes!

When Rachel Reeves’s ambition was to find £22 billion, it was already clear that she would need to find more revenue than what was expected to come from the relatively small take hikes the party announced it would pull pre-election. When that number was upgraded to £40 billion, there was no denying that a big tax hike was coming, the kind that tends to come from the major revenue raisers: income tax, National Insurance, or VAT.

Of course Labour ruled out hikes to these three taxes with its tax ‘triple lock’ in the election manifesto. So the party has had to get crafty. For over a week now, the party has refused to rule out hiking employer National Insurance, insisting this isn’t a tax on ‘working people’ (despite broad agreement that it is). Speculation is growing that Labour may well push ahead with this hike, and brace for the political hit when a manifesto rule is perceived to be broken.