Chancellor Rachel Reeves has today delivered her second Budget, which had a significantly different flavour to last year’s. If the theme of the autumn of 2024 was large increases in spending, punctuated by smaller increases in taxes, this year it’s revenue-raisers that have taken centre stage.

The Chancellor’s lack of wriggle room to increase borrowing meant a much more sombre background to this Budget given the worsening economic forecasts.

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While we were initially led to believe that a broad-based increase in income tax rates might be coming, the Chancellor has opted instead for a piecemeal approach – the so-called ‘smorgasbord’. Thresholds for personal taxes (including the personal allowance, which applies in Scotland) have been frozen yet again, which brings more people

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