Boris Johnson's tax pledge would cost £8bn a year, IFS says

Promise to lift threshold for top rate to 80,000 would boost incomes of highest-earning 8% of population

Boris Johnson's pledge to raise the threshold for the top rate of income tax from 50,000 to 80,000 would cost 8bn a year and boost the incomes of the highest-earning 8% of the adult population, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The policy would take 2.5 million people out of paying higher-rate tax, more than reversing the increase over the past three decades, the tax and spending watchdog said. About three-quarters of the tax benefit would go to the highest-income 10% of households.