Escaping the UK’s Tax Trap

Rising pressures on public spending, the transformation to Net Zero, and the cost of living crisis are all contributing to an urgent challenge to how we fund our societies and maintain productive economies in the 21st century 

Tax rises will be needed. But what kinds of tax reform will be politically acceptable? Are there opportunities to change the shape of the state? Can Universal Basic Services support tax reform, Levelling Up, and Net Zero ambitions? How do we protect economic performance and our climate? 

The IGP’s National Contributions report outlines reforms that would support the Net Zero transition by reducing the cost of living. The panel will discuss the challenges to and opportunities for fundamental reform of the tax system, and the best way to use new revenues to meet the UK’s 21st century challenges. 

Speakers: 

• Professor Henrietta L. Moore, Founding Director of the Institute for Global Prosperity  
• Ann Pettifor, Prime Economics, Author of The Case for the Green New Deal 
• Georgia Gould, Leader of Camden Council
• Andrew Percy, Co-Director of the Social Prosperity Network at IGP, Author of the National Contributions report
   

National Contributions: Reforming tax for the 21st century

To raise the revenues to meet the challenges of the 21st century, the UK’s tax system will have to be reformed to increase transparency, reciprocity, and solidarity. This report describes how those reforms can be made with a system of National Contributions that clearly links contributions to entitlements. There are three key features of National Contributions: a progressive rate structure linked to average incomes; a flat definition of incomes; and a commitment to the allocation of revenues from individuals to services for those individuals. It is a PRoFI tax system: Progressive Rates on Flat Incomes. We model a pathway to prosperity through modernising the tax system, simplifying and broadening the tax base, funding public services to build reciprocity, and then funding Net Zero investments. Distributional analyses of each stage on that pathway are included.

Download the paper