What Chancellor Jeremy Hunt didn’t say in his Autumn Statement

In an ideal world, all government decisions on taxes and spending would be made according to thneeds of the economy. However, the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement was driven more by the

political cycle than the economic one. And more important than what he said, was what he didn’tsay.

The Chancellor made a big deal of the cuts to National Insurance, which put a cool £10bn per year back into the pockets of households. But the reality is that the freeze in income tax thresholds means that many people are being dragged into a higher tax bracket. As a result, the amount of tax flowing into the Treasury’s coffers rises in each of the next five years relative to the size of the economy. In fact, this total tax-take will soon rise to a level not seen since the early 1950s.