**6. Local taxes**

**Table 4** reports collections of the two main local taxes—council tax and non-domestic rates. The information is for England rather than the UK as a whole. Collections of both taxes are


To further examine trends in the UK tax revenues this study examined monthly tax receipts for these three most important taxes. Monthly receipts show significant fluctuations over time so we fitted an econometric trend to these data, having first converted them to constant price terms. For all of the three main taxes the trend (in constant price terms) has been for the real value of tax revenues to increase in a slow but steady way. That is, the increase in the real

UK Taxes and Tax Revenues: Composition and Trends http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.74380 95

The literature on budgetary forecasting (including tax revenues) provides evidence of potential political bias in the forecasts of many countries. In the UK tax revenue forecasts are provided by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The OBR publish not only revenue forecasts at the level of individual taxes but also retrospective information on the

Finally, the study included an examination of revenues collected in England by local government from the two main local taxes—council tax and non-domestic rates. Revenues from each of these taxes have remained stable in relation to national tax revenues. Each tax has yielded

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[2] Bischoff I, Gohout W. The political economy of tax projections. International Tax and

[3] Buettner T, Kauder B. Political biases despite external expert participation? An empirical analysis of tax revenue forecasts in Germany. Public Choice. 2015;**164**(3-4):287-307 [4] Jochimsen B, Lehmann R. On the political economy of national tax revenue forecasts:

[5] Brogan M. The politics of budgeting: Evaluating the effects of the political election cycle on state-level budget forecast errors. Public Administration Quarterly. 2012:84-115 [6] Brück T, Stephan A. Do Eurozone countries cheat with their budget deficit forecasts? Kyklos.

[7] Frankel J. Over-optimism in forecasts by official budget agencies and its implications.

receipts roughly equivalent to 5% of national tax revenues for a period of years.

\*Address all correspondence to: awebster@bournemouth.ac.uk

Evidence from OECD countries. Public Choice. 2016:1-20

Oxford Review of Economic Policy. 2011;**27**(4):536-562

Bournemouth University, Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom

Public Finance. 2010;**17**(2):133-150

value of tax revenues has more or less kept pace with growth in real GDP.

sources of error in past forecasts.

Zara Ghodsi and Allan Webster\*

**Author details**

**References**

2006;**59**(1):3-15

**Table 4.** Local tax collections for England.

reported both in terms of value and in relation to national tax receipts. Collections of local taxes are not included in the national tax receipts figure so the percentages are not shares, just a guide to the relative significance of local taxes.

The results show that receipts from local taxes have broadly kept pace with national tax receipts from 2011 to 2012 until the most recent tax year. The two local taxes combined have consistently raised revenues roughly equivalent to 10% of national tax receipts.
