The territory’s recession is getting deeper and the US is threatening its special trading status, bringing serious consequences for BeijingAlmost six months after the protest movement that has upended life in Hong Kong began, the region is now facing serious questions about its future as Asia’s leading international business centre.The most recent violence in the autonomous Chinese region have been the worst disturbances of the six-month long pro-democracy protests. US lawmakers have passed legislation threatening Hong Kong’s special trading status and the territory has slumped into its worst recession for 10 years.Related: My beloved Hong Kong has become a war zone and daily life is full of anxiety Continue reading...

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as De La Rue warns of ‘material uncertainty’ about whether it can continue as a going concern

Because Germany imports so little, other countries go into debt to pay for its exports. Higher pay could turn this aroundEarlier this month, at a large gala hall in Berlin, the European Central Bank’s president, Christine Lagarde, presented Wolfgang Schäuble – the former German minister of finance – with the Ehren-Victoria award for outstanding achievements in challenging times. “Few have done so much for Europe and the euro. His commitment, rigour and statesmanship are a source of inspiration,” Lagarde later tweeted.Such is the dominant image of Germany: the rock holding fast in the high seas of global economic turmoil and southern European fiscal mismanagement.The surpluses, the official line goes, are simply driven by success of private German companiesRelated: German recession fears after big decline in industrial production Continue reading...

Labour’s proposals are not so dramatic by international standards, writes Joe McCarthy, while Rodney Smith remembers a time when many more services were nationalised. Plus letters from Kimon Roussopoulos, Matthew Taylor, John Weeks, Asaf Mir and Alain HeadYour editorial (22 November) is right that “Labour’s 2019 general election manifesto ... is its most radical in more than 35 years”. But Labour’s new policy initiatives are not quite so dramatic by international standards. Even if all of Jeremy Corbyn’s promises are implemented, the role of the state in the UK will still be smaller than in European countries like Sweden, Norway and France.Britain’s social fabric has been worn thin to breaking point by almost a decade of savage austerity. For instance, millions now depend on food banks to make ends meet, including many in full-time work. Continue reading...

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

Prime minister pins his hope on ‘getting Brexit done’ while not scoring any own goalsTake no chances. Make no mistakes. Maintain strict message discipline. Like a football team two up with 20 minutes to play, the Conservatives think the only way they can lose the election is if they throw it away.The contrast between the manifesto launched by Boris Johnson and Labour’s last week was marked. Behind in the polls and with only three weeks to go before election day, Jeremy Corbyn has gambled that voters are ready for radicalism. In sporting terms, he has thrown on three strikers as subs and sent his centre half up from the back in the hope of getting back in the game. Continue reading...

The Conservative programme unveiled by Boris Johnson rests upon a central untruth: the promise to ‘Get Brexit Done’The Conservative manifesto launched today looks at first glimpse decidedly modest, even unremarkable. It is so by design. It is intended to reassure, whereas Labour’s programme last week was meant to rouse. There is, however, something ambitious about it: the scale of the dishonesty at its heart.The message – delivered somewhat perfunctorily by the prime minister in Telford – is simple: yes to Brexit, no to tax rises, and God save you all from Jeremy Corbyn. There was no attempt to even approach the bonanza which Mr Corbyn boldly promised for public services last week – the biggest hike in current spending in peacetime, said the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). The Conservative offer is just £3bn a year to Labour’s £83bn. Continue reading...

The US favours small government and low taxes, but many developed countries thrive on the oppositeLabour’s plans for Britain involve a big increase in the size of the state. Government spending as a share of national output would rise to 45%. And apart from brief spikes in the mid-1970s and during the more recent financial crash, it has not reached those levels since the second world war.To which the mature response should be: so what? A glance around the world shows that there are rich developed countries where the state is relatively small and there are rich developed countries where the state is large. In democracies, voters get the right to choose between the competing models. Continue reading...

The way we assess economic performance and social progress is fundamentally wrong, and the climate crisis has brought these concerns to the fore

For 40 years now, British people have had to take responsibility for their financial future. An educational museum where people could learn how this is best done is long overdueWhat Britain needs is another museum. No, really. Amid all the hand-wringing about whether Britain’s economic destiny lies in or out of the European Union, there is a clear need for a place to visit that can help people discover how money works.A Brexit deal may have been passed and this election will be a distant memory whenever the museum opens its doors, but with financial education at such a low ebb, a centre that facilitates the discussion of modern-day market capitalism (and its alternatives) must be worth the relatively small outlay.We tie economics to nature, because economics starts in nature and ends in nature. We try to relate everything in the museum to people as economic actors Continue reading...

The Institute for Fiscal Studies seems unable to imagine an economic model that is different from the one we haveThe Institute for Fiscal Studies on Thursday gifted the rightwing tabloids a key argument against Labour’s plan to raise taxes. “Not credible …” say the headlines, as if the entire proposal had been rubbished.Dig deeper, and the claim is actually far more specific than that. The head of the IFS, Paul Johnson, says that it is not credible for all £82bn of Labour’s planned increase in tax revenue to come from companies and people earning over £80,000 a year. So instead of the rich and big companies paying for better public services, the argument goes, “we collectively will need to pay for it” – and will pay for it, according to the IFS, through the £44bn rise in taxes on corporations being passed on to shareholders, consumers and workers, in the forms of price increases and cuts to wages.Only if all companies had an absolute monopoly could they force workers and consumers to bear all the pain of increased taxesRelated: A brighter, more equal future is Labour’s greatest manifesto pledge | Gary Younge Continue reading...

President of the European Central Bank says US/China tariff war should be seen as an opportunityChristine Lagarde has called for European governments to boost innovation and growth with higher rates of public investment, in her first major speech as president of the European Central Bank.Speaking to an audience of bankers in Frankfurt, Lagarde said that rising trade barriers triggered by the US/China tariff war should be grasped by European governments as an opportunity to build a stronger internal market. Continue reading...

Debate deepens on whether savers should be compensated or taught how to invest their moneyGerman policymakers are locked in debate over how to react to negative interest rates, with a split between those who believe savers should be compensated and others who say they should learn to invest.The Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democrats, has proposed either banning banks from passing on negative rates to savers, or giving savers tax concessions.Related: German lenders stick up for savers as ECB rate cut looms Continue reading...

Economics dominates public debate while being seen as an abstract authority over which people have little control. That must changeOn BBC Question Time on Thursday there was an exchange between an audience member and a Labour politician – Richard Burgon – that revealed how poor economic literacy deepens the democratic deficit. The audience member, a man who said he earned more than £80,000, rounded on Mr Burgon and called him a liar for claiming that Labour’s manifesto pledge of raising income taxes for those with salaries like his and larger would only affect the top 5% of the population.Yet Mr Burgon did not lie and the Labour party is right: 95% of workers earn less than £81,000. The man was undeterred, with a heartfelt plea that he was “not even in the top 50%” of earners. In fact, anyone with an annual salary of more than £25,500 would be in the top half of UK wage earners. Plenty of heads nodded along with the questioner’s falsehoods, underlining perhaps the post-truth nature of our times that many consider it better to be sincere than to be correct. The back-and-forth also exposed how mainstream economic stories have been successful in convincing people that there is no alternative to help the country. Continue reading...

Economy forecast to contract as services and manufacturing firms blame fall on uncertaintyBritain’s private sector companies suffered the sharpest drop in activity this month since the EU referendum, as the prospect of a general election added to Brexit-related uncertainty.Most businesses blamed a contraction in activity in November on faltering confidence among both domestic and overseas customers, who are worn out by continuing political indecision. Continue reading...

John McDonnell argues it is wrong to say taxing companies inevitably costs workers

Rolling news coverage of markets, economics and business as purchasing managers indices show economy in decline

As a CEO, it’s clear my peers do not take their tax savings and reinvest it in higher wages and job creation – they tend to keep it all for themselvesI am a multimillionaire in Tennessee, one of the more deeply conservative states in America. In my circle of friends here, I’m often met with scorn for wanting to tax myself and all of my fellow wealthy friends. I’m called a “class traitor” by some, and altruistic by others, but neither are quite true.The way I see it, the reason for any law is to temper the worst vices of individual human nature, so our society can work for everybody. Not just for the rich or the poor or even just for the middle class – but for everyone.Individual actions aren’t enough to counter an entire system that supports and incentivizes the worst of human greedStephen Prince is the vice-chair of the Patriotic Millionaires and a businessman who founded National Business Products, now known as Card Marketing Services, in 1993 Continue reading...

Only top 5% of earners would pay more tax under party, shadow chancellor saysJohn McDonnell has rejected suggestions that Labour’s economic policy would increase prices and lower wages, arguing that structural changes would challenge “extreme inequality” and unstable investment.Speaking after Labour’s manifesto was unveiled on Thursday, the shadow chancellor said people would have much more control over their lives and the economy as a result of the party’s plans to restore trade union rights and collective bargaining.Related: Labour manifesto: what it says and what it means Continue reading...

Adding up the cost of England’s gardens … from Capability Brown to geraniums and neat lawns in the suburbs“I love visiting other people’s gardens,” admits Roderick Floud. Nothing unusual about that, of course: what’s not to like about strolling around beautifully landscaped lawns and borders? But as well as admiring the flowers, Floud – a professor of economic history – has a keen eye for the investment of time, skill and money needed to create and maintain a garden. He has written a new kind of garden history, one which focuses on the economics of our love affair with water features and colourful flower beds.Beginning with the restoration of Charles II in the 17th century, Floud’s study ranges across 350 years of English history, from the designers of royal estates who could earn millions of pounds in today’s money to jobbing gardeners mowing lawns in the suburbs. He explores gardening as a major industry, one largely excluded from GDP figures, yet now worth at least £11bn, one which has “changed the face of England not once but many times”. Continue reading...

Critics could argue forecast revenues from party’s tax plan are on the optimistic side

Jeremy Corbyn has three weeks to win the argument with his strikingly radical tax and spending pledgesLabour’s 2019 general election manifesto, launched on Thursday by Jeremy Corbyn, is its most radical in more than 35 years. It will strike a chord with millions who want categorical change in Britain. The chord will be loudest with those who have seen life chances stall and fracture, and communities weaken, during the fiscally strangulated years that have followed the financial crash. It will ring out, too, for those who want inequality reversed, taxes increased to renew public services and the climate crisis placed at the centre of public policy.The manifesto raises the bar. Its ambitions match the seriousness of the times. The green agenda is the single most important pledge, an overarching imperative. But it is not the only issue the manifesto confronts in bold terms. The neglect of towns and regions, the need for modernised transport and infrastructure, the importance of reskilling, and of rights against employment injustice, the case for affordable housing, the demands for child and elderly care, a better deal in education and health spending all cry out too. Continue reading...

Party leader has taken postwar socialist ideas and added a modern populist twist

UK ran £11.2bn deficit last month, with fastest rise in public spending in 15 years

As global economic risks deepen and multiply, equity values rise further - is this what’s called a ‘melt-up’?This past May and August, escalations in the trade and technology conflict between the US and China rattled stock markets and pushed bond yields to historic lows. But that was then: since then, financial markets have once again become giddy. US and other equities are trending towards new highs, and there is even talk of a potential “melt-up” in equity values. The financial-market buzz has seized on the possibility of a “reflation trade”, in the hope that the recent global slowdown will be followed in 2020 by accelerating growth and firmer inflation (which helps profits and risky assets).The sudden shift from risk-off to risk-on reflects four positive developments. First, the US and China are likely to reach a “phase-one” deal that would at least temporarily halt any further escalation of their trade and technology war. Second, despite the uncertainty surrounding the UK’s election on 12 December, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has at least managed to secure a tentative “soft Brexit” deal with the EU, and the chances of the UK crashing out of the bloc have been substantially reduced.Related: The next global recession will be immune to monetary solutions | Nouriel Roubini Continue reading...

Prospect of crashing out of EU leaves UK more exposed to global financial risks, thinktank saysThe UK’s GDP growth rate will slip to 1% next year even if a no-deal Brexit is avoided, according to the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation.The OECD said the economy would slow down from growth of 1.2% this year if parliament passes Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal before the 31 January deadline, before returning to 1.2% in 2021. Continue reading...

On the day of Labour’s manifesto launch, economics editor Larry Elliott and financial editor Nils Pratley discuss the party’s radical plans to nationalise key British industries. Plus Max Rushden on the return of Jose Mourinho to the Premier LeagueLabour’s plans to bring key industries back into public ownership will be laid out in the party’s election manifesto today. There are nationalisation plans for energy, water, trains, mail and broadband in a radical shake-up of the economy worth tens of billions of pounds. With business leaders sceptical and the Conservative party attacking the plans as a return to the economic chaos of the 1970s, where does the truth about nationalisation lie?The Guardian’s economics editor, Larry Elliott, and financial editor, Nils Pratley, tell Anushka Asthana that public ownership of industries plays a significant role in the history of the Labour party and postwar Britain. Continue reading...

As politics turns ever inwards, the Fund must be quicker to admit its mistakes and implement reformsThis year, I didn’t attend the October annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington. Instead, I paid close attention to reports of the gathering and talked to people who were there whom I respect. What emerged is depressing for the wellbeing of the global economy. In particular, the prospect of continued weakness and fragmentation pressures will compound the challenges to the credibility and effectiveness of multilateral institutions.The convening power of the IMF and the World Bank is unquestionably strong, if not unique. Every year, their annual meetings attract top economic and financial officials from more than 180 countries, as well as a far larger number of private-sector representatives. It’s an exceptional global gathering, not only for officials to exchange views but also for corporate networking.Related: Does the IMF need to refocus its role after the Argentina crisis?Related: Does the IMF need to refocus its role after the Argentina crisis? Continue reading...

How the state procures its £300bn a year worth of spending is key to making companies work for wider society, says IPPRThe government should use the leverage from the near £300bn a year it spends on goods and services to ensure businesses behave responsibly and improve working conditions, a left-of-centre thinktank has said.The Institute for Public Policy Research said Whitehall was failing to maximise the impact of its financial clout despite a procurement budget worth 14% of the economy’s annual output and 36% of total government spending.Extending its scope from services to include the procurement of goods and contracts relating to construction and engineering.Requiring public bodies to “account for” rather than simply “consider” social value, forcing them to state publicly the additional social benefit they have delivered.Applying it to all contracts but with a lesser expectation depending on the scale. Continue reading...

IFS says rises needs in order to compete with private sector after decade of wage restraintTargeted increases in public sector pay are needed to enable the NHS, schools, the armed forces, the police, the civil service and prisons to hold on to and hire workers in the face of competition from the private sector, a thinktank has said.The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that after a decade of wage restraint, the government now needed to respond to growing evidence of recruitment difficulties. Continue reading...

You can applaud some of John McDonnell’s plan but some parts are vague and others just plain oddLet’s start with the good bits in shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s speech on “rewriting the rules of our economy”. Forcing big accounting firms to split their auditing and consulting units is justified: current conflicts of interest are too great. One can applaud the push to get workers on to boards. And enhanced voting rights for long-term shareholders is an idea worth exploring.If McDonnell had stopped there, he would have had a worthwhile package of reforms. But he moved on to territory that ranged from radical to vague to plain odd.Related: Labour would rewrite rules of UK economy, says John McDonnell Continue reading...

The shadow chancellor has promised that a Labour government would ‘rewrite the rules of our economy’ as he announced proposed reforms to business regulation that he said would help workers ‘take back control’.In a speech in Westminster, he said: ‘The relentless pursuit of shareholder value has been to the detriment of workers, consumers, communities and our environment’ Continue reading...

The country’s traditional powerhouses on the centre-left and the centre-right face a moment of reckoningPostwar German politics has a reputation for being moderate, consensual and a touch on the dull side. But there have been moments of high drama. In November 1959, for example, the Social Democratic party (SPD) abandoned its historic ambition to replace capitalism with socialism, dropped the Marxist account of class struggle and began to pitch itself as a broad-based Volkspartei (people’s party). History vindicated the decision. For the next 50 years or so, the SPD vied for power with the country’s other great political force, the CDU (and its CSU Bavarian ally), as both parties regularly achieved a vote share of over 40%.Famed for their practice of big-tent politics, what the CDU and SPD would give for such numbers now. The agonies of Brexit and the rise of rightwing populism have claimed the political limelight around Europe. But those looking for clues to the continent’s future would do well to watch Germany closely over the coming weeks. Continue reading...

Pay has not recovered from the 2008 crisis so staff work longer to fill the gap, boosting labour supply and limiting wage risesTurn the clock back a decade. The economy is just about to emerge from its worst recession in living memory. Since the start of 2008, output has contracted sharply quarter after quarter. The banks have been saved but the official unemployment rate has hit 8%, a 13-year high.Now imagine you had a crystal ball that could foresee what would happen over the next 10 years. Hard though it is to believe, your crystal ball tells you there will be no real recovery from the slump. Productivity growth – which had been averaging 2% a year up until 2008 – will collapse. The economy in 2019 will be at least 15% smaller than it would otherwise have been had the financial crisis never happened.Related: Tory plan to outspend Labour turns party's principle on its head Continue reading...

In contrast with the mood of largesse, economists say Johnson’s deal will lower state revenues by £26bn a yearIf the president of the United States, a non-European, feels entitled to air his views about Brexit, I see no reason why the outgoing president of the European council, Donald Tusk – a much more agreeable Donald – should not air his.Quoting Hannah Arendt, Tusk said: “Things only become irreversible when people start to think so.” Tusk, who rightly thinks the very idea of Brexit is, to quote another US observer, Michael Bloomberg, “a mistake”, says: “Don’t give up.”It would be better to tell those Brexiters who say 'the people have spoken' that, with a lot more knowledge about the implications, the people should be allowed to speak again Continue reading...

No wonder the wealth tax turns the Gray Lady white as a sheet: it will help the needy and its author is a good bet for presidentOn Thursday, the New York Times reported on a study showing that Elizabeth Warren’s proposed wealth tax (and presumably Bernie Sanders’ even more ambitious version) would reduce economic growth by nearly 0.2% a year, over the course of a decade.Related: Elizabeth Warren rips into billionaires who oppose wealth tax in scathing adWarren has repeatedly argued that taxing the super rich is the fairest and most efficient way to pay for critical needsRelated: Elizabeth Warren helps out 'confused' billionaires with new tax calculatorRobert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. He is also a columnist for Guardian US Continue reading...

Labour’s plan for free broadband is one of many high-spending promises made by both sides: and they seem to be popularVoters are becoming more open to calls for a radical change to the way the economy is organised and more accepting of the role of government in pushing through significant reforms, according to a major poll of public attitudes last week.Sixty per cent of respondents to a YouGov poll of more than 1,600 people were in favour of the next government making “moderate” or “radical” changes to the way the British economy is run, while only 2% said the government should leave the economy as it was. Those in favour of change split between 29% who backed moderate policies and 31% who wanted a more radical agenda. Continue reading...

Data shows the economy has been weaker since 2010 than under Labour between 1997 and 2007How did the Conservatives get away with inventing and publicising a ridiculous figure for Labour spending? Their claim that Labour’s plans would cost £1.2tn included many things the party ruled out doing, such as abolishing public schools; it doubled the cost of policies such as bringing the National Grid into public ownership; it counted 10-year commitments (such as making housing more energy-efficient) as happening over five years; and so on.Related: Labour derides £1.2tn Tory costing claims as 'work of fiction' Continue reading...

The party hasn’t even published its manifesto yet – but already it’s changed the notion of what elected politicians can achieveIn today’s troubled Britain, it is commonplace to say that the political parties need to come up with some fresh ideas to transform the country. But what happens if one of the big parties starts announcing radical new policies and yet most people don’t seem to be listening?That sobering question hangs over Labour’s hugely ambitious but so far only moderately successful election campaign, judging by the slow improvement in its poll ratings.It's making promises of a scale and novelty rarely encountered in the often content-free world of British electioneering Continue reading...

The health service is in crisis and Tory cuts are to blame. But bigger budgets are not the only answerThe health service is a big issue in any UK election. There are two main reasons why, this time round, the arguments are particularly fraught. One is the sense of crisis engulfing the system after a decade of cuts, with A&E waiting times in England the worst on record, and a shortage of 100,000 staff (in a workforce of 1.3 million) predicted by experts to grow to 350,000 by 2030. Allied to this is a consensus that many of the long-term challenges faced by the system are simply not being addressed. These include the overhaul of social care, which is universally acknowledged to be necessary but apparently no closer to happening than it was in 2010, and huge rises in the number of people who are obese, and children being referred to mental health services.The second theme is the prospect of US demands for market access and higher drug prices as part of any post-Brexit trade deal. There were typically mixed and confused signals on this issue during the summer from President Trump, and strong denials from Conservative leadership contenders that the NHS would feature in bilateral talks. But set against such assurances are the US administration’s stated goal of raising prices for US medicines abroad, in order to lower them at home, and expert opinion. Andrew Hill, an adviser to the World Health Organization, predicts that the NHS drugs bill could rise from £18bn to £45bn a year. Continue reading...

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, including reaction to Labour’s pledge to bring BT under partial state ownership if elected

In adopting the Green New Deal, the party has a plan for a more inclusive economy. And even the Tories have done a U-turnMany people want this election to be about whether Brexit will solve or exacerbate the problems the UK faces. But most of these problems were born inside the UK’s borders, and long predate the Brexit referendum.This week’s growth figures showed a 0.3% rise in GDP in the last quarter, removing the immediate threat of a UK recession. Yet, a decade after the global financial crisis, the British economy remains weak and unbalanced. Economic growth remains highly dependent on consumption fuelled by private debt, rather than investment. The financial sector has largely retreated from funding the real economy, and today more than 80% of its revenue is channelled into the finance, insurance and real estate (“fire”) sectors.We need to move away from 'shovel-ready' projects and think about 'green transition' projectsRelated: In 1989, capitalism won. Today its greatest ideological challenge is the planet | Larry Elliott Continue reading...

Institute for Fiscal Studies launches scathing review of plans to cut in-work poverty

Sector slows for sixth month amid growing uncertainty over pact with WashingtonChina’s manufacturing sector slowed for the sixth month in a row in October, and by more than expected, as the tit-for-tat trade war with the US and weaker consumer demand dampened activity in the world’s second-largest economy.Industrial production, the main engine of the Chinese economy, grew at annual rate of 4.7% in October, down from 5.8% in the previous month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.Related: Burberry and Cathay Pacific profits dented by Hong Kong protests Continue reading...

Charlie Mason and Richard Middleton take issue with Larry Elliott’s assertion that the EU is pro-business and anti working peopleLarry Elliott expresses support for Brexit on the basis that the EU is pro-business, anti working people, and the embodiment of neoliberal ideas (Inside the Guardian, 9 November). However, he does not confront the fact that his decision to vote leave has provided support for an even more extreme form of neoliberalism promoted by the leave campaign of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and the ERG. Out of the frying pan into the fire might be the appropriate observation.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, including German growth figures

The Tories’ obsession with policy costings as the only measure of economic credibility is austerity logic in actionThis week the election campaign has been squarely focused on public finances, with the Conservatives publishing a widely derided £1.2tn assessment of Labour’s spending plans. In spite of the debunking of these figures, the party has doubled down with a separate assessment of Labour’s tax plans – it says Labour’s spending plans outweigh how much it plans to collect in tax, leading to a £2,400 per taxpayer “gap” that will need to be filled by borrowing or raising taxes.Of course, the Conservatives are aware of the quality of the claims they are making. As a tactic, the £1.2tn is straight out of the “£350m a week” playbook: come up with a big figure, and no matter if it’s indefensible, wait for it to stick. The more your opponents complain, the more they end up repeating the big number until it’s indelibly imprinted on voters’ minds.While we’re all obsessing over the numbers, we lose sight of the questions that really matterRelated: Worsening public finances give next PM a sharp 'reality check' Continue reading...

Drop of 0.1% blamed on pre-Brexit concerns and declines in employment and wages growthBritain’s shops were hit by a surprise downturn in sales in the run-up to Christmas after official figures showed a 0.1% drop in October.City analysts had expected consumers to continue their month-on-month spending increases with a 0.1% rise, albeit largely built on heavy discounting by retailers. Continue reading...

Tax revenues ever more reliant on small group of high earners, says Institute for Fiscal StudiesThe top 1% of earners in the UK now account for more than a third of income tax paid to the government, following changes over the past decade that have left almost half the population exempt from making payments.In research underlining the dual nature of Britain’s income tax structure, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said above-inflation increases in the personal allowance to £12,500 a year meant 42% of adults paid no income tax. Continue reading...

Consumer prices index inflation falls to 1.5%, in a boost to households, thanks to lower energy bills