Pre-Budget report 2006
Resources
Brown lifts taxes to plug gaps in finances
Gordon Brown raised taxes by £2bn on companies and air passengers to help fill an unexpected hole in public finances that constrained his attempt to make education the battleground at the next election.
PBR: point by point guide
At a glance summary of the key measures.
Related content and features
Comment
A serious contest still lies ahead
The chancellor sounded as if he intends to direct our lives from the womb (the new starting point for payment of child tax credit) to the grave, writes Philip Stephens.
Relentless interventionist strikes again
Mr Brown would not be Mr Brown if he looked back on his labours and rested. He cannot see a problem without wishing to solve it. He is a puritan who knows no sabbath, writes Martin Wolf.
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS
Parting shot for the tax-thrifty
Gordon Brown is leaving the building. That much was clear from a speech that marked his disengagement from micro-managing businesses and his growing interest in micro-managing the lives of ordinary Britons, writes Jonathan Guthrie.
Editorial Comment
Brown - the master and micro-manager of UK plc
Gordon Brown’s pre-budget report on Wednesday was not just his last, but the last of its kind. The chancellor will almost certainly be prime minister by this time next year.
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS
How Treasury got its forecasts wrong
Far from reporting tax cuts and lower borrowing Gordon Brown had to raise duty, writes Chris Giles, the FT’s economics editor
Ask the expert
What does the PBR mean for you?
Leonie Kerswill, tax partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Michael Owen, financial planning director at Douglas Deakin Young, answer your questions.
