Income tax and national insurance will be merged under plans being lined up as a key element of the next Conservative manifesto.
George Osborne came “within a whisker” of implementing the plan in the budget and is now looking again at the policy for the general election.
The chancellor is being urged to offer the pledge by Tories who believe that the decision to roll together the opaque national insurance system with income tax will remind people of the scale of the tax contribution they make. The plan is being actively considered by Downing Street.
With public finances expected to improve in the next parliament, tax cuts are likely to shoot up the agenda from next year. Supporters of the reform believe that it would