The independent tax and legal policy think tank

We investigate the real-world impact of the UK tax and legal system, expose avoidance and abuse, and propose practical reforms.

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The £12bn VAT cut for hospitality. Who really benefits?
Who benefits from the VAT cut? Micro up to 9 employees Small £1,900m 10-49 employees £2,280m McDonald's £432m Mitchells & Butlers ee 248m aE Whitbread £238m Medium —— soo King 50-249 employees Ss Wetherspoon £1,470m Ps WS £194m Other larg 250+ employees £2,014m Compass KFC Stonegate Domino's Uber Eats fees Nando's Deliveroo fees Just Eat fees IHG hotels Greggs Marriott hotels Accor hotels @ Hilton hotels
Most read
Has Britain run out of “other people” to tax? Has Britain run out of “other people” to tax? Venables prosecution The Venables prosecution – Tax Policy Associates stamp duty hike didn’t backfire. That’s The stamp duty hike didn’t backfire. That’s the problem UK has 90 taxes. Here they The UK has 90 taxes. Here they all are – Tax Policy Associates UK, France and Germany UK, France and Germany: why do some countries have so many taxes?
Telegraph headline: Chancellor’s stamp duty raid backfires as sales slump
Jun 9, 2026 Policy

Why do we still have stamp duty?

The Housing select committee has said stamp duty does economic damage and should be reformed. The Telegraph says the stamp duty increase last year “backfired”: transactions slumped, and receipts fell with them. I wish that was right, because there would then be an easy argument to reverse the increase, and even abolish the tax. But […]
A crowd of people
Jun 5, 2026 Policy

Has Britain run out of “other people” to tax?

British politics has spent a generation avoiding the same uncomfortable question: what if the government people want costs more than most voters are willing to pay? The answer, from Labour and the Conservatives alike, has been to tax “other people”. Higher earners. Banks. People with capital gains, second homes, large pensions, non-dom status, inherited wealth […]
Humble address
Jun 1, 2026 Analysis

Search the Mandelson Government documents

At 2.30pm today, the Government published a series of documents relating to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as His Majesty’s Ambassador to Washington. This is in the form of three PDF files, each with multiple messages, and about 1,500 pages in total. It’s not very easy to navigate through – we’ve created a simple search […]
Chart showing France has far more taxes than any other developed country; Germany has the least of any large country; the UK is in the middle
May 30, 2026 Policy

The UK has 90 different taxes. France has 348. Germany has 60. Why?

The UK has 90 different taxes – more than at any time since 1834. France, on the other hand, has 348. But Germany, which has overall levels of tax closer to France than the UK, has only 60. Why is that? And are there lessons for the UK? This is the third in a series. […]
A History of Tax
May 29, 2026 Policy

Why does Britain have more taxes than at any time since 1834?

Tax in the UK is the highest it’s been since 1945. That’s well understood – but another trend has been largely missed: the number of taxes in the UK is at its highest since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Back then, the Government was fighting France and building the modern state. Afterwards, and over […]
The structure allegedly used by Robert Venables, KC
May 29, 2026 Analysis

The Venables prosecution

As we reported last year, Robert Venables KC is being prosecuted for tax evasion in respect of his own tax planning arrangements. This is the prosecution’s opening note. It includes details of Mr Venables’ tax arrangements, how HMRC started to investigate those arrangements in 2019, and how that became a criminal prosecution. Court blogger Mouse […]
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