Merging Income Tax and National Insurance would just be more honest

Over the weekend Kamal Ahmed, Business Editor at the Sunday Telegraph,  reported that the Government is slowly moving towards simplifying the tax system by at least merging the administration of Income Tax and National Insurance. Our research on the growing complexity of Britain's tax code shows that an ambitious attempt to simplify the system is needed. And in another recent paper we showed how a full merger was possible.

A full merger, and bringing the two taxes together instead of just having them work the same way behind the scenes, isn't just simpler.  It would also be more honest. Here is a simple new video, produced with visualisation experts See What You Mean, that sets out how the tax system understates how much we're really paying, in Income Tax and Employees' National Insurance - even before we get onto Employers' National Insurance which also depresses your wages:

[iframe http://www.youtube.com/v/GnbuNkPNzcE?version=3&hl=en_US 500 308]

Click here to tweet the video to your family and friends

Over the weekend Kamal Ahmed, Business Editor at the Sunday Telegraph,  reported that the Government is slowly moving towards simplifying the tax system by at least merging the administration of Income Tax and National Insurance. Our research on the growing complexity of Britain's tax code shows that an ambitious attempt to simplify the system is needed. And in another recent paper we showed how a full merger was possible.

A full merger, and bringing the two taxes together instead of just having them work the same way behind the scenes, isn't just simpler.  It would also be more honest. Here is a simple new video, produced with visualisation experts See What You Mean, that sets out how the tax system understates how much we're really paying, in Income Tax and Employees' National Insurance - even before we get onto Employers' National Insurance which also depresses your wages:

[iframe http://www.youtube.com/v/GnbuNkPNzcE?version=3&hl=en_US 500 308]

Click here to tweet the video to your family and friends

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