Within the income tax system, married couples or civil partners may be able to transfer tax credits, tax bands and reliefs from one partner to the other, whereas the USC is an individualised tax. An amalgamation of income tax and USC into one tax would require fundamental changes to the structure of the personal income tax system and may have consequential impacts on Exchequer receipts.

This will be done to prevent an increase in the real burden of income tax, to prevent more low-income workers being taken into the tax net because of no changes to the tax system and to ensure there is no increase in the number of people having to pay higher income tax and USC rates. Moving on to the issue of a report on the introduction of a 30% rate of income tax, I must point out that last year, the tax strategy group examined the issue of an intermediate or third rate of income tax.

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