LONDON (Reuters) – British finance minister Rishi Sunak will probably have to offer concessions to businesses if he wants to be able to implement a big hike in corporation tax that is at the centre of his new budget plan, a leading think tank said on Thursday.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies also said it was very unlikely that Sunak would be able to deliver the 17 billion pounds ($23.7 billion) of annual spending cuts included in his plan.
IFS director Paul Johnson said if the plan was implemented as announced on Wednesday, Sunak would meet one definition of a balanced budget – borrowing only to invest – by 2025-26.
“The sad truth is that that would be a balance built on the highest sustained tax burden in UK history and yet further cuts in unprotected public service spending,” Johnson said.
“That is perhaps one measure of the difficulties presented by more than a decade of paltry growth followed by the deepest recession in history.”
($1 = 0.7178 pounds)
(Writing by William Schomberg, editing by David Milliken)
