Prospect of breaking 50-year income tax taboo shows scale of Reeves’s challenge
The chancellor appears to believe voters will forgive a broken promise in return for meaningful investmentIn April 1975, the Labour chancellor Denis Healey sought to grip the UK’s runaway inflation and rising unemployment rates – an economic crisis triggered by the shock rise in global oil...
<p>The chancellor appears to believe voters will forgive a broken promise in return for meaningful investment</p><p>In April 1975, the Labour chancellor Denis Healey sought to grip the UK’s runaway inflation and rising unemployment rates – an economic crisis triggered by the shock rise in global oil prices – by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/1999/mar/03/budget2001.budget1999">raising the basic rate of income tax</a>.</p><p>Now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/rachel-reeves">Rachel Reeves</a>, faced with her own set of difficult economic circumstances, including a multi-billion-pound budget shortfall, is contemplating the same remedy – breaking a 50-year taboo by becoming the first chancellor since Healey to hike the basic rate of income tax.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/04/prospect-of-breaking-50-year-income-tax-taboo-shows-scale-of-reevess-challenge">Continue reading...</a>
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