W
hen Rachel Reeves stood up in the Commons last October to deliver her maiden budget as chancellor, she admitted that she had made some “very difficult decisions on tax” to restore stability to the public finances.
Then came a barrage of tax increases for employers, second-home owners and investors, while the chancellor laid the groundwork for making pension savings liable to inheritance tax.
That tax-raising budget came not long after the Conservatives had been voted out of government, having started a deep freeze on tax thresholds which, combined with rising prices and wages, has meant millions more of us paying higher rates of tax.
Fast forward nearly a year, and the country is bracing itself for another bruising budget. Reeves’s second budget will be on Wednesday, November 26, and she said this week that she had “more to do”.
