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Philip Hammond avoids the tough questions on tax

Philip Hammond took advantage of an improvement in the public finances to avoid tax hikes in the Budget. Should he have raised taxes anyway, David Smith asks.
 

In my last column for Tax Journal in early September I took an early look forward to the Budget. It was at a time to remind you when Philip Hammond’s annual budget was expected to be in November or even early December rather than late October. It was also at a time when the chancellor was widely thought to be facing an impossible task with tax rises politically very difficult and the prime minister’s generous 70th birthday present for the NHS to pay for.

I suggested then that Hammond’s problem was not as big as it had been painted and that he could avoid tax rises because ‘an improvement in the public finances may have come...

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