Reform UK’s tax pledges could cost the Treasury billions of pounds in lost revenue and it remains unclear how they would be paid for, according to audit, tax and business advisory firm Blick Rothenberg.

Tom Goddard, an assistant manager at the firm, said Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s shadow chancellor, had pledged to scrap tax on overtime payments, cut national insurance for businesses that “hire British workers”, lower the rate of VAT for self-employed individuals, and give every taxpayer a £30 tax credit if they are kept on the phone to HMRC for more than 30 minutes.

“However, there is little detail on how these measures would work, how much they would cost to be implemented, and how the resulting loss in tax revenue would be offset,” he said. “Although Reform UK has suggested welfare spending cuts could fund these measures in part, detailed fiscal analysis of both costs and savings would be needed to actually assess if this is feasible.”

The overtime pledge builds on a policy Nigel Farage set out in May, when the Reform UK leader promised to lift income tax from overtime pay for workers earning under £75,000 at a stated cost of around £5bn a year.

Goddard said the three headline measures would each strike at one of the UK’s largest sources of revenue. “Scrapping income tax on overtime, lowering national insurance contributions, and decreasing VAT would impact each of the UK’s ‘big three’ tax generators,” he said. “Consecutive governments have ruled out making changes to these three taxes as they constitute too large a portion of the country’s revenue, around 75% for the period from August 2025 to July 2026. Lowering the rates of the big three, even if only under specific circumstances, could cost the country billions in tax revenue which would need to be accounted for elsewhere.”

The proposal to reduce VAT for self-employed workers drew particular criticism. Goddard said it “could also create both fairness and complexity issues”, pointing out that VAT is generally levied on goods and services rather than on an individual’s employment status.

“Creating a separate VAT regime for one category of worker could introduce new administrative burdens, further costs and increase opportunities for tax avoidance through reclassification of employment status,” he said.

The firm was equally sceptical of the plan to compensate taxpayers for long waits on HMRC’s helplines, an issue that has dogged the tax authority for years, with callers reporting waits of up to 70 minutes ahead of filing deadlines.

Goddard said a new tax credit scheme based on call times “could cost the country millions in implementation before the first qualifying call”, because it would require robust mechanisms to verify eligibility, process claims, prevent fraud and administer payments.

He then set out what the credit itself might cost. “By HMRC’s own statistics, there were 24 million calls for the year in 2025, of these, 50% had a waiting time of 10 minutes,” he said. “Taking a conservative approach, 15% of total calls may have had a call time of longer than 30 minutes. This amounts to 3.6 million calls, each of which would be entitled to a £30 tax credit, therefore resulting in further cost to the government of £108m.”

HMRC’s own performance data for the 2025 to 2026 year shows the department had received just over 24 million calls in the year to January, with an average speed of answer of 13 minutes 27 seconds and 51.4% of callers waiting more than 10 minutes.

Goddard also warned that the design of the scheme could backfire. “It could be argued that linking compensation directly to time spent on a call risk encouraging individuals to remain on the line unnecessarily or to repeatedly contact HMRC in pursuit of a credit,” he said. “Even if safeguards could be introduced, doing so would add further complexity to what is intended as a remedy for long wait times.”

The intervention comes as Reform UK courts the business community, with Vodafone, Heathrow and JCB among the companies attending the party’s conference in Birmingham this week, where it is staging its first dedicated business day.

Goddard said the UK’s tax system had “serious problems” that needed to be addressed “in a proactive and comprehensive measure”. He added: “However, adding additional complexities to the system is unlikely to be the answer.”

Amy Ingham

Amy Ingham is a reporter at Business Matters, covering UK business news with a focus on breaking news, business policy, late payments and insolvency. She joined the magazine in 2026 after completing the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Harlow College’s journalism school. Her recent reporting includes British Steel’s nationalisation and its impact on SME suppliers, the decline in late payments by large firms, and Insolvency Service director disqualifications. Reach her at aingham@cbmeg.co.uk.

BUNIA, Congo — Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo said Monday that the country’s fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak on record has surpassed 6,000 confirmed cases, with nearly 2,900 deaths, as the epidemic continues to outpace every previous Ebola outbreak the country has faced.

The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rarer strain of Ebola for which no approved vaccine or treatment currently exists, was first confirmed in mid-May after being traced to Mongbwalu health zone in Ituri province. Officials now believe the virus had actually been circulating undetected since February, months before it was formally declared. Since then, it has spread from three health zones to nearly 60 across five provinces, according to World Health Organization data, making it both the largest and fastest-moving Ebola outbreak the country has ever recorded.

More than 1,360 people have recovered from the virus so far, a figure Congolese authorities described as an encouraging sign amid the broader crisis. Even so, the World Health Organization has warned the outbreak remains out of control and is on pace to eventually surpass the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola epidemic, which killed more than 11,000 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and remains the deadliest Ebola outbreak ever documented worldwide.

The rapid spread has been driven by a combination of factors specific to eastern Congo’s volatile security situation. Ongoing armed conflict, mass displacement, a strike among health workers and intense population movement have all complicated containment efforts, with the situation described as especially dire at displacement sites, where residents already live in extremely precarious conditions. Last week, the virus spread into two additional health zones in the region.

The dangers facing response teams extend beyond the disease itself. On Saturday, an Ebola response team was attacked on the outskirts of Mambasa, a town in Ituri province, while responding to a call to help secure a body suspected of carrying the virus. A group of young people armed with machetes stormed the site of a funeral, forcing the response team to flee and injuring one worker in the process. “We demand greater security so we can operate in the field and do our work without endangering our lives,” said Floribert Magene, a member of the response team, in comments to the Associated Press.

Safe burial practices remain one of the most difficult aspects of the response. Bodies of Ebola victims can remain highly contagious, and traditional burial preparation and funeral gatherings have repeatedly been linked to further spread of the virus in this and past outbreaks. In response, Congolese authorities have mandated that burials of suspected Ebola victims be managed by trained personnel wherever possible, a policy that has at times drawn resistance and protests from grieving families and friends who want to participate directly in funeral rites.

Vaccination efforts against the outbreak remain limited by the specific strain involved. Last week, Congo began vaccinating health workers and other front-line responders using the Ervebo vaccine, which has proven effective in past outbreaks caused by the more common Zaire strain of Ebola. However, no licensed vaccine currently exists specifically for the Bundibugyo virus responsible for this outbreak, and clinical trials remain underway to develop one. Case fatality rates in previous Bundibugyo outbreaks have historically ranged between 30% and 50%, and the current outbreak’s roughly 44% fatality rate falls within that historical range, according to World Health Organization data.

The broader public health response has disrupted daily life across the six affected provinces, particularly hard-hit Ituri, which was already contending with ongoing rebel violence before the outbreak began. Measures including restrictions on public gatherings, social distancing requirements and airport closures have all been implemented in affected areas. The Congolese government has introduced some additional measures, including installing health and sanitation equipment at various sites, though advocacy groups have said more work is needed to build community trust in the response, particularly given the history of resistance to outside intervention in some affected communities.

While neighboring Uganda declared itself free of Ebola last month after recording a limited number of cases tied to the same outbreak, the World Health Organization warned last week that the risk of further cross-border transmission remains, given the scale and continued spread of the epidemic within Congo’s borders. International aid organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, have deployed more than 1,400 staff to the affected region, operating six treatment centers across four provinces as the response effort continues to expand alongside the rising case count.

The United States said it carried out a series of airstrikes against targets in Iran overnight, drawing a response from Tehran in what was described as the most serious escalation in the conflict between the two countries in weeks.

Also read: Trump says US gave Iran many chances, dismisses value of any deal: Report

Crude oil price on September 2

Brent crude futures gained 99 cents, or 2%, to $96.54 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose $1.55 , or 1.52%, to $92. Both contracts had jumped more than $4 on Tuesday, with Brent posting its biggest gain since July 24 and WTI its largest since July 23.
The US Central Command said the strikes came after recent attempted attacks by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and on American service members deployed in the region.

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Hormuz opening in jeopardy

The IRGC said the US attacks would further restrict traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway that carried about one-fifth of the world’s consumed oil before the conflict and which Iran has effectively closed to commercial shipping.
The IRGC also said it had targeted a US military base in Jordan with ballistic missiles, claiming that a large number of US forces were killed. Iranian state media separately reported a large-scale drone attack on a US base in Bahrain in response to the American strikes.The latest exchange came after a weekend flare-up in hostilities, the first since July, and followed attacks on two tankers leaving the Strait of Hormuz on Monday. The attacks added to disruptions in oil supplies and prompted traders to look for alternative crude shipments.

Read more: Iran warns US strikes will ‘tighten the lock’ on Strait of Hormuz

Jordan’s military said its air defences intercepted 10 of 13 ballistic missiles that entered its airspace, while two US officials said no American casualties had been reported so far. Kuwait, meanwhile, said its armed forces were responding to hostile drone activity.

Where are prices headed?

The length of the disruption will be a key factor for crude markets. JPMorgan estimates that each additional month of disruption could lift Brent prices by around $7 to $8 a barrel. If the disruption continues for three months, the bank expects average monthly Brent prices to reach around $114 a barrel.

Goldman Sachs has also warned that Brent could rise to $120 a barrel if shipping disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil transit route, continue. Its base case, however, assumes that tensions in the Middle East will eventually ease.

The bank expects Brent to average $80 a barrel in the fourth quarter and $75 a barrel next year, while noting that risks remain skewed to the upside if disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea persist for longer than expected.

Ponmudi R, CEO of Enrich Money, said crude prices would remain closely linked to developments around the Strait of Hormuz. He said a sustained recovery in shipping flows could further unwind the geopolitical premium in crude and provide relief to emerging-market equities, while renewed disruptions could quickly reverse that trend.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)