An end to political arguments?

Well, probably not but I've found a very useful document for some of those arguments down the pub (or more often these days, on Facebook). It works like this:

• Person A wants the government to spend more money on something
• Person B says we can't afford it
• Person C says of course we can - tax the rich/cut benefits/etc.

Trouble is, even if Person A knows exactly how much money s/he wants spending, no one knows whether the bill will in fact be covered by what Person C proposes.

Well, I found an answer. It's a government document and I'd be the first to agree that "Direct effects of illustrative tax changes" is not the snappiest title - but stay with me!

The short version is just two pages long and shows just how much money you could raise by adding 1p to the major tax rates - around £4 billion for a penny on standard rate income tax for example.

You want to spend around £800 million? Easy - raise Corporation Tax by 1%. Even better, that will yield twice as much by the end of the decade.

For the unabridged and Excel versions of this fascinating document go here