The Budget and Productivity Plan contained a number of policy wins for the Centre for Policy Studies. These include, fixing the Annual Investment Allowance, increasing the Rent-a-Room Allowance, extending the freeze on working age benefits, extending the oil and gas investment allowance, reforming the Electronic Communications Code and deregulating mast height restrictions, increasing the Personal Allowance, committing to the 2% NATO defence spending target, the National Living Wage, cutting the corporation tax rate to 18%, reforming the dividend tax credit, simplifying vehicle excise duty, opening the higher education market to new and alternative providers and privatising the Green Investment Bank amongst other measures. In particular, the radical idea put forward by the Chancellor to treat pensions like ISAs seems to have been inspired by CPS Research Fellow, Michael Johnson’s recent paper The Workplace ISA and the ISA Pension.
As one leading financial journalist has commented: “Either way, for spoilers ahead of the Autumn Statement later this year, you could do worse than to look at anything coming out from the Centre for Policy Studies
Date Added: Sunday 12th July 2015
