There won’t be many rabbits out of Reeves’ hat at the upcoming Budget but here’s what to expect: gambling taxes, windfall taxes and an income tax national insurance swap, says Tim Sarson

I remember the good old days of Budget predictions. We used to get our thinking caps on about a fortnight before the event, put out a blog and end it with some speculation about what this year’s rabbit out of the hat might be.

Budget prediction season starts earlier these days. The decorations were already going up by late August. But nobody is expecting a shower of gifts. There will be very few, if any, rabbits on 26 November. There will be tax rises.

Ahead of fiscal events, my KPMG tax policy team get their heads together to work out what might happen on the day, and what we should be telling our clients. We are not political experts. Instead, we put ourselves in the shoes of Treasury officials faced with the government’s current financial position. Only after we’ve gone through the numbers, tax by tax, and tested ideas with our technical specialists, do we layer on just a dash of political judgment to our predictions. Well okay, perhaps more than a dash.

Here are the headlines from this year’s Budget conclave:

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