The Great Tax Parachute

In the short term, government spending is needed to keep people in work as the only guaranteed way to reduce a deficit in a time of unemployment. When the immediate crisis has passed and the government needs to balance its books again, there are two options: to cut government spending or to raise revenue. As the Green New Deal Group’s briefing, The Great Tax Parachute: How to save the public finances and give the economy a soft landing shows, the first of these, does not need to be an option.

Taken together, the Green New Deal Group estimate that more than £100 billion a year is lost at present because of abuse of loopholes in the tax system, tax bills remaining unpaid and from illegal non-payment of tax. Action on these issues is needed now.