Or as the Daily Mail has it:

The number of people paying higher-rate income taxes is set to more than double from 4.4 million to 9 million by 2027 under the government’s £52 billion stealth tax raid, analysis finds. www.dailymail.co.uk

Despite this colossal rise in the tax take the IFS says the government cannot afford to cut taxes in the autumn statement.

www.theguardian.com Politics Live

The Conservatives have fought every election at least since the 1980s as the party of low taxation. But, as the IFS report suggests, that is no longer plausible. It says that Rishi Sunak’s decision to freeze the income tax personal allowance at its 2021-22 level for four years in his March 2021 budget, and Jeremy Hunt’s decision last year to make that a six-year freeze, not a four-year freeze, is now set to raise £52bn by 2027-28 – the same as a 6p rise in basic rate and higher rate income tax. The IFS says:

“If we instead calculate revenue based on the latest inflation forecasts from the Bank of England (August 2023) and assuming that beyond 2026Q3 inflation remains at 2%, it looks like the freeze to both income tax and NICs thresholds is now on course to raise £52bn in 2027–28 (or £43bn if subtracting the cost of the increase in the point at which employees and the self-employed pay NICs)

This is a huge tax rise. To give a comparison, the biggest single tax-raising measure in recent history was the June 2010 budget decision to increase the main rate of VAT from 17½% to 20%, which is estimated to raise £21bn in 2027–28. Or, to put it another way, other ways to raise roughly £52 bn of revenue include increasing both the basic and higher rate of income tax by 6p, or increasing the main rate of VAT from 20% to 26%.”

Despite this colossal rise in the tax take (a consequence of what is known as “fiscal drag”), the IFS also says the government cannot afford to cut taxes in the autumn statement.

Labour says this shows the Tories have crashed the economy. Darren Jones, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said:

“After 13 years of chaos and instability, the Conservatives have crashed our economy and left working people worse off.

Successive failures by Conservatives ministers have left us with low growth, high tax and national debt at the highest level in generations. Britain cannot afford another five more years of the Conservatives.”

And Sarah Olney, the Lib Dem Treasury spokesperson, said:

“This research lays bare the sheer scale of economic vandalism by the Conservative party.

Ministers have condemned the UK to sluggish growth, high inflation and soaring interest rates. It is hard-working families who are left to pick up the pieces, shouldering a huge burden of unfair tax rises and seeing our public services on their knees.”