Mirrlees Review

The Mirlees Review was a comprehensive review of the UK tax system undertaken in 2010, chaired by the Nobel laureate Sir James Mirrlees for the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The findings were launched in November 2010 and were published by Oxford University Press in two volumes.^[1] The report argued that it was possible for governments to raise the same revenues at significantly lower cost than the current system of taxation^[2] and submitted recommendations to support this notion.

Panel

The review panel members were:

Sir James Mirrlees
Stuart Adam
Timothy Besley
Richard Blundell
Stephen Bond
Robert Chote
Malcolm Gammie
Paul Johnson
Gareth Myles
James Poterba

Key Principles

The report was based on the following key principles.^[3] A tax system should:

Be designed as a whole in conjunction with a benefits system
Seek to be neutral and minimise distortion in the market
Be progressive as efficiently as possible

Recommendations

The report^[4] recommendations included subjects of taxation of earnings, indirect taxes, taxation of housing, environmental taxes, taxes on savings and business taxes.

References

^ "Mirrlees Review launch of findings -".
^ "Tax from scratch". The Economist. 11 November 2010.
^ "Mirrlees Review of tax system recommends radical changes" (PDF). ifs.org.uk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 January 2022. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
^ https://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/mirrleesreview/pamphlet.pdf ^{[bare URL PDF]}