PBR becomes more taxing - papers 7 December

The FT points out much of the tax rises announced would not have been required had the Treasury not “got its sums wrong”. Despite a strong economy and even some paring back of net new investment announced in April’s Budget, the question has to be how did the Treasury fail to spot a gap of up to £5bn opening up in public finances. The paper says the reason is simple: the Treasury failed to heed advice from parties including the Bank of England, which had been warning for some time the economy was running out of so-called spare capacity, meaning any additional growth would merely stoke ...