The future of taxation in the UK

Restoring the nation’s finances to a sustainable footing is the most important issue facing our economy and an essential pre-condition for growth. While tackling the deficit is unavoidable decisions about how to do it are not. There’s always some pressure to shift the weight of responsibility from spending cuts toward taxation with tax rises for business the obvious choice.

This has not been our approach. And while we have stepped up our efforts to tackle criminal behaviour and evasion and improved HMRC’s capacity to discourage avoidance we don’t pretend – as some do – that we can tackle the deficit by simply closing the tax gap. We are taking the tough decisions on the deficit and on growth. We have made creating the most competitive tax system in the G20 a priority committing to making the UK the best location in Europe...