Farage's 'fantasy promise' on tax cuts doesn't add up

Reform UK tax plans would cost up to 80bn, the IFS warns

- ARCHIE MITCHELL

Nigel Farage’s promise to slash taxes if he wins the next general election does not add up, Britain’s top economic think tank has warned.

The Reform UK leader touted plans to hike the threshold for paying income tax and restore winter fuel payments for pensioners as he declared the party as the “true party of workers”.

But, just hours after the arch-Brexiteer’s speech, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said his plans would cost tens of billions of pounds and he had failed to say how they would be funded.

Senior economist Stuart Adam told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme that Reform’s plans to hike the income tax threshold from £12,500 to £20,000 “dwarfed” his other announcements, which included getting rid of the two-child benefit cap and the full restoration of winter fuel payments.

He said the tax threshold plan would cost between £50bn and £80bn and warned that “if they’re going to be a party of government, they would have to make those numbers add up”.