JEREMY Hunt is considering hitting Brits with up to £25 billion in tax hikes to help balance the country's finances, latest Whitehall estimates show.
The Chancellor, who must fill a black hole of around up to £60 billion, is also currently targeting spending cuts in Whitehall departments which could reach £35 billion.
Rishi Sunak and Mr Hunt are holding crunch talks ahead of the Autumn Statement on November 17 over how they split the cuts and tax rises.
Hunt told Treasury staff last week that if he was taking between £50 and £60 billion out of the economy it would have to be "in a fair way".
The Treasury has emphasised in recent days that those with the ‘broadest shoulders’ will bear the greatest burden with all Brits expected to pay more.
It comes on the back of Bank of England forecasting that the country will be in recession until mid-2024.
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The freezing of income tax thresholds until 2028 is one likely option along with taking a larger slice of the energy giants' eye-watering profits.
The latest Whitehall estimates come as Cabinet Minister Oliver Dowden says the government will only pursue tax rises as a “last resort” as it moves to balance the books.
He told Sky News: “We're going to have to take difficult decisions on both tax and spending.
Mr Dowden yesterday added: “We need to bear down on spending first and eliminate waste, excessive spending and only go to tax rises, if it's a last resort.
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“But given the difficulty of the public finances, there is likely to be a mix of the two.”
Mr Hunt could drastically reduce the relief middle-class workers enjoy on their pension contributions as part of the cash raid.
It comes as a staggering one in four homeowners fear losing their home over rising mortgage costs, a new poll reveals.
Households are worried about handing back the keys to their property, defaulting on a bill or cutting down on food amid a cost of living crisis.
Overall, seven in ten people with a mortgage say they expect to pay more in housing costs over the next year, a Savanta ComRes survey for the Lib Dems found.
Meanwhile, the Tories must abandon "half-baked" Thatcherism and realise growth here will be slower, a former No 11 adviser says.
Tim Pitt today warns the Conservatives risk retreating to the "comfort blanket" of 1980s orthodoxy rather than setting out a new approach, his report for the think tank Onward says.
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The ex-adviser to Sajid Javid and Philip Hammond said the party should not set an "arbitrary" limit on the size of the state.
It must also stop "obsessing" over the size of the overall tax burden, but instead focus on fairness and providing services and support "across society".
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