91影视破解版

Expert Comment: CenTax reaction to Budget 2026

Professor Arun Advani, Director of and Professor of Economics at the 91影视破解版 said:

"As expected, this was a 鈥渟mall鈥� budget. Small because forecasts for debt, deficit, overall tax and government spending are relatively unchanged. But also because, although there were many tax measures announced today, they were largely focused on patching up the existing system rather than solving underlying problems.

"The Chancellor also chose to increase tax complexity. Having explained that Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) was ineffective, he nevertheless chose to partially retain it, restricting it only enough to pay for the newly announced Founders鈥� Relief. Rather than having a clear administrative principle that small amounts of tax should be exempt from Self Assessment and covering these with a general relief, he added a new Pensions Tax Allowance and expanded the Trading Allowance. These will sit alongside separate allowances for property income, savings, dividends and Capital Gains Tax.

"This Budget also highlighted the costs of poor data quality within government. The desire to keep pensioners out of Self Assessment reporting for trivial amounts of tax is understandable, but a relief would not be needed if the DWP had the information needed to directly operate PAYE withholding. The information needed to target energy support based on household income and energy needs – instead of property value in 1991 – already exists across government but has not been adequately linked up. These problems were visible during the COVID-19 pandemic and when energy bill support was provided in 2022, but the government has continued not to invest in the underlying data infrastructure that would allow better targeting of policy.

"After last year鈥檚 Budget, we wrote that 鈥淔or a government that鈥檚 supposedly obsessed with growth, we seem no closer to the realisation that our broken tax system is part of the UK鈥檚 growth problem, and that major structural reforms – not just rate-changes or more bolt-ons – are needed to fix it. Overall, the tax changes announced today are unlikely to move the needle on growth much one way or the other.鈥� Despite the changes at the top of government, this year the picture looks much the same.鈥�

• Visit for more detailed analysis of the measures announced yesterday by Chancellor John Healey.