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Author Archives: Peter Kenway

The Independent View: Government can ensure that the election debate on welfare and tax reform is informed as well as impassioned

By Peter Kenway | Tue 9th September 2014 - 4:50 pm

The changes to taxes and benefits that came into effect in April 2013 are the Coalition’s most important single package of work and welfare reforms. Some, above all the bedroom tax, have provoked fierce opposition. Others, like the replacement of council tax benefit by council tax support, have impacted millions.

But April 13 was also the moment when the income tax personal allowance went up by the largest amount ever, returning £5 a week to the pocket of anyone earning between about £9,500 and £41,000 a year.

Add in the fact that the knock-on effects of reforms as time passes are not always the same as the immediate ones and it is clear that this package of changes will have had complex and often contradictory effects, especially at a time when the economy itself had once more started to grow again steadily.

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Posted in The Independent View | Tagged iain duncan smith and welfare reform | 2 Comments

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