Posts in "Analysis"
Satellite image of the UK
Jul 12, 2026 Analysis

A land value tax for England: who pays?

I just wrote in the Sunday Times about the political and economic case for a land value tax. I think the principled argument for LVT is compelling, and our (likely) next Prime Minister has supported it for many years. The challenge is the detail – and wrapped up in that is who wins and who […]
a map of England showing the projected impact of a £1.5m mansion tax
Jul 7, 2026 Analysis

What if Andy Burnham lowered the mansion tax threshold to £1.5m?

The November 2025 Budget introduced a “mansion tax” – formally, the “high value council tax surcharge” – an annual charge on homes worth £2m or more. The Mail on Sunday has reported that Andy Burnham may lower the threshold to £1.5m. We’ve looked at what that might mean: who would pay, where the properties are, […]
Cash is our preferred method of payment
Jul 1, 2026 Analysis

How Andy Burnham could raise £15bn – without a tax rise.

It’s the UK’s biggest and least discussed tax problem. There’s between £30bn and £48bn missing from each year’s small business tax bills. It’s been getting worse – and nobody knows why. There’s no other issue where so much money is at stake but so little time is spent discussing it. It’s almost never mentioned by […]
redacted tax return
Jun 26, 2026 Analysis

The Palace’s fake tax transparency — and the Prince of Wales’ real tax problem

The Royal Household has, for the first time, disclosed how much voluntary “tax” the King pays: £12.9m for 2024/25, £11.7m for 2023/24, and a little over £5.4m for the six months of 2022/23 in which he was King. The documents also continue the practice of disclosing the Prince of Wales’ tax: £7.76m for 2024/25, £8.34m […]
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 […]
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 […]
A Jenga tower
May 28, 2026 Analysis

90 UK taxes. On one chart.

The UK has 90 taxes. This chart shows them all, and this article explains why we have so many. Update 29 May 2026: the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury responded to this article by pointing out that the Government had just abolished bingo duty, folded diverted profits tax into corporation tax, and ended the pseudo-tax […]
Angela Rayner
May 14, 2026 Analysis

Why did HMRC not charge Angela Rayner a penalty?

UPDATED 5pm: We have now spoken to Graham Aaronson KC, who advised Angela Rayner. He says that HMRC’s decision is explained by facts not apparent from Sir Laurie Magnus’s report. We have reflected his account below. But Ms Rayner’s team is not releasing the underlying documents, and we cannot accept the word of one party […]
Government revenue relative to 2025 —= UK Advanced economies =< Advanced economies minus US —. United States —— Germany = France Japan Canada = italy South Korea Australia —=——— Spain == Netherlands Poland 20 0, T ; T T ; T 1 1 T 1 1980 1985 1930 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030
Apr 29, 2026 Analysis

Tax will go up but public services will get worse. This is why.

UK tax as a percentage of GDP is on course to be the highest since 1945. Over the next four years it will increase further. Government spending won’t increase as a percent of GDP over this period; given the ageing population, that means public services for most people are likely to decline. This article looks […]

Legal and privacy

© 2026 Tax Policy Associates Ltd. A non-profit company limited by guarantee (no. 14053878)

RSS feed