"While it’s relatively easy to estimate how much a 1 per cent change in this rate or that rate of tax will bring in, once you move to talking about big shifts of 9 per cent on Corporation Tax, or an additional 5 per cent on earnings over £80,000 you enter much less certain territory. Behavioural change by those facing these tax rates becomes as important as the rates themselves – as does government action to try and respond to those changes. We’re then into a complex world of shifted incentives, changed behaviour, tax avoidance and tax enforcement. Those telling you that such tax rises would raise nothing are as wrong as those telling you with equal certainty what they will raise in pounds and pence."
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