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A write-up of the CIOT/Institute for Fiscal Studies event, held on Thursday 17 September 2020.

You can watch the video of the event by clicking here.

Think tanks are an important part of the tax policy process. Operating outside of political parties (though often with close affiliations to a particular party or wing of it) they have more licence to engage in free-thinking and to float radical new ideas, starting a debate before politicians are committed to a particular proposal. Keeping up with what well-connected think-tanks are advocating is a help in anticipating what a party, or even the government, may be thinking before it has been announced, especially as there is something of a ‘revolving door’ between the world of think-tanks and that of political advisers to ministers and their opposition counterparts.

The Treasury Committee held the first oral evidence session of its Tax after Coronavirus inquiry this week (1 Sept). The witnesses were Paul Johnson, Director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Dr Gemma Tetlow, Chief Economist at the Institute for Government, Mike Brewer, Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Economist at the Resolution Foundation, and Professor Philip Booth, Senior Academic Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs. They spoke for greater neutrality in employment taxes and better taxation of property.

This is a reproduction of a comment article written by John Cullinane, Tax Policy Director at the Chartered Institute of Taxation, which appeared in The Independent on Monday (24 August 2020).