In place of tinkering: the 2020 Tax Commission

The report which Fraser mentioned last week, from the 2020 Tax Commission, has just been published – you can download the summary here and full report here. Allister Heath, chairman of the commission and a contributing editor of The Spectator, says more here:-


It is time for Britain to make a vital choice. Our economy is stagnant, crippled by excessively high public spending, high levels of leverage, a mismanaged and inefficient public sector, an extraordinarily complex and punitive tax system and a public mood that has become increasingly anti-capitalist. There are two options. We can either decide to tweak the status quo – try and keep a lid on public spending, reform bits of the public sector and hope for the best. The problem with such a soft option is that it may stave off an immediate budgetary crisis but it will condemn
Britain to permanent relative economic, social and cultural decline.

Or we can drastically change course: reduce public spending much more ignificantly, adopt an entirely new tax system fit for the 21st Century and establish the UK as a global trading hub, generating renewed prosperity for all those who live and work here.