Most manifestos stop at intentions. Forge has gone a step further and drafted the tax reform as an actual Bill: the Taxation (Simplification and Consolidation) Bill. It is an illustrative draft, not a Bill before Parliament and not settled by Parliamentary Counsel, and every amount in it is illustrative pending independent costing by the Office for Budget Responsibility. But it exists, in statutory form, so that the reform can be read, tested, and challenged as law rather than as a slogan.
Why publish a draft Bill at all? Because the gap between a manifesto line and a working statute is where most tax reforms quietly die. Writing it as legislation forces every hard question into the open: how a controlled company is defined, how an anti-avoidance rule actually bites, what happens on death and on gift, how the devolved settlements are respected. If a policy cannot survive being written as law, it was never a real policy. This one can.
What the Bill does
One rate schedule for all income
The central mechanism is the equal taxation of income from every source. Employment, self-employment, dividends, and capital gains are all charged on one rate schedule. Employee National Insurance is abolished and merged into income tax, and the rates are set at 27%, 41%, and 47% on the existing thresholds, which incorporates the abolished contributions and delivers a one penny cut at the basic and higher rates. The hidden 60% band caused by the withdrawal of the personal allowance above £100,000 is removed. Contributory benefit and State Pension entitlement are fully preserved through a continued contribution record.
A single VAT rate, with fresh produce tax-free
VAT is charged at 16% on a broadened base, with one deliberate exception: fresh produce (raw, unprocessed fruit, vegetables, salad, herbs, and fungi) is charged at a nil rate to support healthy diets. Residential letting and financial services are exempt, following the New Zealand model, so rents do not rise. Crucially, the Bill makes the household support package a legal commencement condition: VAT cannot be applied to food until the Universal Credit uprating, the free school meals extension, and the Child Benefit increase are all in payment and a distributional assessment has been laid before Parliament.
Gains taxed as income, on sale, gift, and death
Capital gains are treated as the top slice of income and taxed at the same rates, with a personal £500,000 lifetime exemption and the main home exempt. Gains are charged on death and on lifetime gifts, closing the "hold until death and rebase" and "give it away early" routes. Genuine working farms receive an additional £2,000,000 exemption and up to twenty years to pay, but only where the land is actively farmed by the owner or family, so land held purely as a shelter loses the relief.
Simplification written into the law
The Bill caps the consolidated tax code at 1,000 pages and provides that no future Finance Act may insert a relief without repealing provisions of at least equal length. Reliefs are listed exhaustively in a Schedule. The remittance basis and non-dom status are abolished. The off-payroll (IR35) rules are replaced with a single test: if more than 80% of your receipts come from one client, you are that client's employee for tax. A general anti-abuse rule applies across every tax in the Bill, including VAT, with a 60% penalty.
Property tax and the rest
Council tax in England is replaced by the banded residential property tax (0.78% to 1.70% by value), with deferral for pensioners and hardship, and receipts distributed to local authorities by need. Stamp duty is removed from main residences but retained at 0.5% on share transactions. Corporation tax is held at 20% with full expensing, the patent box and sector reliefs are repealed, and a minimum tax ensures large multinationals are assessed on at least 10% of their UK revenue unless audited evidence shows less.
An honest note on status. This is the fifth revision of an illustrative policy draft. It has not been settled by Parliamentary Counsel, it is not before Parliament, and it does not constitute legal or tax advice. All rates and amounts are illustrative pending independent OBR costing. It is published in the spirit of showing our working: the detail is there to be scrutinised, not hidden.
Read the full Bill
The complete draft, all 55 clauses, 5 Schedules, and explanatory notes, is available to download and read in full.