How might Reeves increase income tax – and what does it mean for you?

The budget could involve a range of rises – here’s how they would stack up for different levels of income

In a gloomy state of the nation speech this week Rachel Reeves signalled that a rise in income tax could be on the cards in this month’s budget.

Labour had promised in its election manifesto not to increase the levy (or the other two “big three” taxes – national insurance and VAT), but the chancellor appears to be preparing the ground for an almighty U-turn to fill a bigger-than-expected £30bn hole in the public finances.

So if Reeves does take the plunge, how could she go about it and what would each option mean for public and household finances?

Reeves’s coded comments that she had to “deal with the world as I find it, not the world as I might wish it to be” were interpreted by some as preparing the ground for the first rise in the basic rate of income tax in 50 years.