IFS says government faces choice of higher taxes or lower spending

Chancellor Gordon Brown may be forced to choose between higher taxes or lower spending if he is not to break his own rules the Institute for Fiscal Studies says after reviewing government general revenue figures for the first six months of fiscal 2002-3. The problem is that tax receipts have grown much slower than forecast in the Budget, as both income and corporation tax revenues have grown at a slower rate than during the same period last year. Government spending, meanwhile, has been rising sharply: expenditure in September alone was up more than 13% compared to the same mo...