CoVid-19 and Britain’s tax trap

• No one knows how or when the coronavirus outbreak will end, but one thing is already certain: The economic consequences — as well as the social impact — will be huge.
• Ian Mulheirn, a former Treasury official and chief economist at former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Institute For Global Change think tank, said governments were effectively facing up to the consequences of — quite rightly — imposing deliberate recessions on their economies.
• Far from being able to cut public spending to balance the books, Mulheirn believes the government will come under “intense pressure” to increase spending further.
• In the end, “higher taxes will be needed to service and ultimately reduce our deficit.”

 

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