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Rachel Reeves leaves door open to raising UK taxes next month

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Rachel Reeves left the door open to raise taxes next month to help connect a financial hole, despite insisting that public financial resources in the United Kingdom were in full swing and that they would not “return with more tax increases.”

The advisor’s plans were detonated from the path due to the weak economic data, including the flat growth, which threatened to scan the margin of the error of 9.9 billion pounds, which it provided to itself against its financial bases in its budget in October.

REEVES is expected to use a statement on March 26 to rebuild this temporary store and indicated that “the rooting of waste” in public spending is its first choice. But the Treasury Ministry refuses to exclude the tax height as part of the package. One of the assistants said that Reeves was taking “nothing from the table.”

The financial outlook can be improved so far between now and when the budget responsibility office produces its final report along with the March 26 statement, which means that tax increases or harsh spending discounts prove that they are unnecessary. The initial OBR forecast last week showed the Reeves Chamber.

When asked before financial times whether Reeves could rule out tax changes in its statement on March 26, the Treasury has failed to do so.

He said: “Our commitment to financial rules and proper public financing is not negotiable. The advisor said, the budget responsibility office will publish its updated forecasts on March 26, and it will respond to it at the time.”

The Treasury added that it is committed to one “major” financial event in the year, the autumn budget.

Among the options discussed in the cabinet for the next month, there is a continuation of the freezing of income tax thresholds and allowances after 2028, a step in which Reeves looked at its budget in October.

The Institute of Financial Studies, which the intellectual suffocate says, says that the frozen income tax thresholds from 2028-29 will bring about 3.5 billion pounds-4 billion pounds annually, assuming inflation by 2 percent or more, if national insurance thresholds are also frozen.

Treasury officials described differently the idea as “interesting” and “the clear thing to do.”

Before the budget, the government launched that continuing to freeze to the thresholds – which began under the conservatives – will not violate the pledge of work not to raise the income tax. Reeves in the end announced that the freezing will end, using it to show a contrast in the tax between employment and governors.

Officials say Reeves decided not to maintain freezing in October because she wanted to announce “something positive.”

Paul Johnson, IFS president, said that he will be “relatively painless”, given that Reeves can announce change now, but later reversed if the economy improves.

OBR’s freezing declaration can allow this measure to be included as a positive public financial resources later in Parliament, but it will not require immediate legislation. This would help in supporting the Reeves argument that it will not make a full budget next month.

The conservatives had placed the threshold freezing to run until 2028. Johnson said: “I am surprised that the consultant did not extend the freezing of the budget – it could have given them a little more space against their goals.”

However, the announcement of future freezing in tax thresholds will be seen as an actual tax increase and is still risky political for Reeves, given its previous claims that it settled on public financial resources with its tax of 40 billion pounds – raised its budget last year .

“We have now identified the expenditure envelope on this parliament,” said the selected treasury committee in the House of Commons last November. “We will not return with more tax increases or more borrowing.”

While OBR expected in October that the UK will get 9.9 billion pounds against the main financial base of Reeves, which requires that the current budget be in a surplus by 2029, which was erased due to poor growth and higher interest rates, according to the familiar people with the matter .

The British economy mobilized only 0.1 percent annually growth In the last months of the year, the stock exchange experts, including the Bank of England, expects a weaker expansion in 2025 and 2026, which OBR expected in its view in October.

If OBR eliminates that weakness will continue, it may reduce the expected size of the economy at the end of the OBR forecast period, with a decrease in growth in tax revenues and the exacerbation of the financial situation.

If Reeves is forced to achieve billions of pounds of savings in March, she indicated that her main focus will be to reduce public spending, including the Social Welfare Bill, which promises a more compact government tour.

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2025-02-14 17:24:00

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