The UK wants to be a great place to start and grow a business, but is the tax system helping or getting in the way? Ahead of the 2026 Budget, our panel will bring together perspectives from shadow ministers, tax experts and the businesses to ask what the UK gets right, where it falls short, and what should change. Hosted by CenTax and the Chartered Insititute of Taxation (CIOT). 

• Time: 10:30-12:00
• Venue: Sonata Room, Hyatt Regency Birmingham 

Confirmed Speakers

• John Cooper MP, Shadow Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury
• Professor Andy Summers, Director, CenTax, and Professor of Law, LSE
• Paul Aplin OBE, President, CIOT
• Alice Jeffries, Head of Tax Policy, CBI
• Chair: Helen Whiteman, Chief Executive, CIOT 

The UK wants to be a great place to start and grow a business, but is the tax system helping or getting in the way? Ahead of the 2026 Budget, our panel will bring together perspectives from ministers, tax experts and founders to ask what the UK gets right, where it falls short, and what should change. Hosted by CenTax and the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT).

• Time: 12:45-14:00
  
• Venue: Exhibition Event Space 2, Exhibition Centre Liverpool

Confirmed Speakers

• Rt Hon James Murray MP, Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster General  
• Professor Arun Advani, Director, CenTax, and Professor of Economics, University of Warwick
• Paul Aplin OBE, President, CIOT

• Lisa Johnson, Vice President, Global Public Affairs & Corporate Communications, Starship Technologies. Lisa is also co-lead of Labour Digital North.

• Chair: Ellen Milner, Director of Public Policy, CIOT

Join CenTax directors Arun Advani and Andy Summers for the launch of our report Taxes at the top, chaired by the Telegraph’s Melissa Lawford and made possible through the support of the Nuffield Foundation.

Debates around tax in the UK tend to assume any significant increase in revenue must come from raising the main rates on one or more of the ‘big three’: Income Tax, National Insurance and VAT. At the same time, the personal tax system is perceived as top-heavy, with limited scope to ask those at the top to contribute more. Recent budgets show how binding these tenets have become.

Taxes at the top examines how much tax those at the top really pay, looking at all taxable income and capital gains and the personal taxes paid on them and setting out reforms available to the Government at Budget 2026.

The ‘Closing the Tax Gap’ conference will take place 23–24 April 2026 at the University of Warwick. Our multidisciplinary event will bring together tax professionals, think tanks, the civil service and academia for two days of discussion on the tax gap in the UK.  

Ticket sales have now closed.  We hope to run the event again in 2028 and will announce details in due course.

In September, CenTax hosted a two-day academic workshop bringing together researchers from across the world to explore how firms respond to labour supply shocks.

• Find out more

Tax practitioners are invited to join us on Wednesday 23 April for a joint event with Blick Rothenberg to hear about the latest CenTax research and share views on what practical improvements need to be made to our current and future tax landscape for families, individuals and business owners.