The two sides of the VAT question

There are two main aspects to the VAT issue: one distasteful, the other less so.  The distasteful one is the issue of whether the government has a mandate for hiking VAT in tomorrow’s Budget.  Of course, government is often the art of the unexpected, so we shouldn’t be surprised to see measures implemented that weren’t explicitly raised in the election campaign – particularly when it comes to tax rises.  But all the claims that there were “no plans” to raise VAT do jar against reports like:

“Osborne insisted the budget measures would be spread fairly across society, suggesting capital gains tax will rise and promising a new banking levy. But he refused to be drawn on the vexed issue of a potential rise in VAT, which the Conservatives had privately committed to raising from 17.5% to 19.5% before the election.”