Each day we are publishing a blog on one of the policies from our Spending Plan. Click here to read the previous policy.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies calculated that reversing the discretionary increases in the child element of the child tax credit since 2003–04 would save around £5.1 billion in 2015–16. We assumed that the fraction of forecast total tax credit expenditure in 2019–20 would be the same as 2015-16 to estimate that this would equate to a saving of around £5.8 billion in 2019–20.
That increase since 2003–04 was and remains unaffordable. The government should reverse it.