article_snippet: However, the IFS said the changes were a 'missed opportunity to improve the tax system', because the changes had been introduced in a piecemeal way with little attempt to address 'fundamental structural deficiencies'.
article_snippet: Several of the changes have exacerbated 'unwelcome distortions' in the tax system, said the IFS.
article_snippet: It was difficult to find a 'good economic reason' for lifting ever-more lower-paid workers out of income tax while leaving National Insurance thresholds largely untouched, and it was an 'absurdity' that the two taxes had not been integrated.
article_snippet: the IFS highlighted the 'problematic' failure to uprate tax thresholds in line with inflation, and warned of a 'rapid' increase in workers paying higher rates of income tax as the economy improves.
article_snippet: the report also warned that council tax had been allowed to get 'ever more out of date', with bands in England and Scotland based on property prices in 1991.
article_snippet: And the report said that areas such as fuel duties and business rates had 'seen a stream of ad hoc, often temporary, announcements overtaking each other without a clear statement of principles or long-run intentions'.
highlights_snippet: Institute for Fiscal Studies slams 'missed opportunity' to improve system .
  