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Certify the Microcosm UK national from microcosm#1428 on policyengine-uk 2.164.2 (0a4c8e2c; local area 6528c865 or c9df4b86) - #731

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@juaristi22 juaristi22 commented Nov 1, 2026 •

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@MaxGhenis, for the UK hub: this certifies the national from PolicyEngine/microcosm#1428 on policyengine-uk 2.164.2 and supersedes #728. It needs the same decision from you as #728: which local-area cut it keeps, (a) or (b) below. That call carries over from #728, and this PR stays a draft until you make it.

The national

microcosm-uk-2024-25-national-20261031T181401Z-0a4c8e2c (microcosm_uk_2024_25):

The local area: your call

Constituency and local-authority regions route to the local-area cut (regional_release_kind: local_area). Neither cut below carries the fixes in PolicyEngine/microcosm#1419, PolicyEngine/microcosm#1420 or PolicyEngine/microcosm#1428, so area runs don't see them. The next rebuilt pair will.

(a) #725's microcosm-uk-2024-25-dense-20261027T154955Z-6528c865. This draft's default.

(b) main's microcosm-uk-2024-25-dense-20261026T105309Z-c9df4b86, the local-area data the dashboard reads today.

  • Built on policyengine-uk 2.151.0.
  • It needs its own input-surface audit against 2.164.2 before certify-data accepts it, with María as auditor (--audited-by juaristi22) and a limitation saying the cut was built on 2.151.0. Its H5 is on hand and matches the manifest pin, and the audit takes about a minute.
  • It doesn't store 25 inputs that 6528c865 stores and 2.164.2 reads: 24 alcohol, tobacco and gambling quantities, and is_apprentice. Area runs on it would read them as zero, along with the five inputs (a) defaults, so they would carry no alcohol, tobacco or gambling duty.

If you choose (b), I'll run the audit, re-certify and push it here.

Before the dashboard moves to this bundle

  • The Pension Tax Allowance row ("State Pension income tax protection") still can't run: see note 1 under the table.
  • Distributional results. policyengine-uk 2.164.2 predates Count other investment income in market and HBAI income policyengine-uk#2736, which counts other_investment_income in market and HBAI income. On this pin, household net income carries the tax on that income without the income itself. Costings read tax and benefits, so the table below is unaffected.

Budget measures on this national

Scored with #728's method: the PolicyEngine/uk-autumn-budget-dashboard-2026 measures (57095fd) and their October 2026 forecast. Each figure is the weighted change in gov_balance, in £bn. They were scored on policyengine-uk 2.162.14, as #728's table was; the bundle pins 2.164.2, and a rescore there can follow.

Columns:

Measure Year This cut #728 (4374e0bf) Published OBR line Table 6.1
Household Energy Payment 2026-27 −1.969 −1.969 −1.969 — −2.625
Zero VAT on domestic electricity 2026-27 −0.788 −0.841 −0.840 — −0.755
2027-28 −0.332 −0.353 −0.353 — −0.305
Fuel duty rises deferred 2026-27 −0.290 −0.290 −0.301 — −0.575
2027-28 −0.501 −0.501 −0.521 — −0.780
State Pension income tax protection 2027-28 to 2029-30 not scored (1) not scored (1) −0.030 / −0.083 / −0.144 — −0.045 / −0.090 / −0.150
Trading allowance raised to £3,000 2028-29 −0.148 −0.112 −0.118 −0.221 −0.225
2029-30 −0.149 −0.116 −0.119 −0.165 −0.165
2030-31 −0.148 −0.116 −0.120 −0.171 −0.175
2031-32 −0.147 −0.119 −0.130 −0.178 −0.180
Property income rates +2pp 2029-30 +0.402 +0.416 +0.429 +0.394 +0.435
2030-31 +0.417 +0.432 +0.446 +0.403 +0.445
2031-32 +0.429 +0.445 +0.459 +0.412 +0.455
Savings income rates +2pp 2029-30 +0.582 +0.603 held back +0.443 +0.520
2030-31 +0.611 +0.636 held back +0.475 +0.555
2031-32 +0.636 +0.666 held back +0.510 +0.590
Carer's Allowance earnings taper 2030-31 −0.037 −0.017 −0.024 — −0.040
2031-32 −0.073 −0.032 −0.048 — −0.080

(1) The dashboard's State Pension template wraps income_tax, which on policyengine-uk 2.162.x adds the Winter Fuel Payment charge, so the template refuses. The port is the dashboard's to do; the data play no part (#728, note 1).

What moved against #728's national:

Savings against the OBR's income tax line

Edited after Max's review, which compares the savings rates with the OBR's income tax line rather than the Table 6.1 total. That total adds £78m of onshore corporation tax in 2029-30, which the model doesn't cover. The earlier reading here is withdrawn: a difference of base level, with ISA shifting small.

  • The gap is 31%, 29% and 25% above the income tax line in 2029-30 to 2031-32. That compares this cut's static figure with a line after behaviour.
  • What sets this cut's figure.
    • The national pins the 2025 tax on savings to HMRC's Income Tax Liabilities Table 2.6 projection, by rate: 0.98, 1.00 and 1.00.
    • On that base, +2 points gives £0.48bn in 2025 and £0.58bn in 2029-30.
    • No data change moves it without departing from HMRC's projected tax. SPI donor savings rebased to SPI's 2023-24 bands (savings follow-up to #1418) microcosm#1428 tried binding those rows at £7.51bn, the 2023-24 outturn grown on the OBR's savings path. The calibration couldn't meet them beside SPI Table 3.7's savings income, and the change was reverted.
  • What the OBR's figures imply.
    • EFO paragraph 3.17 gives the measure about £0.6bn a year after behaviour and puts the savers' response at around £0.2bn a year, mainly extra use of ISAs.
    • That puts the static yield at roughly £0.75bn across all taxes.
    • This cut's static income tax averages about £0.61bn over 2029-30 to 2031-32: below that, not above it.
  • Not verified:
    • the size of the response;
    • its split between income tax and corporation tax;
    • whether the costing's base grows like HMRC's projection or in proportion to income, which would make it up to 13% lower.
  • The OBR estimates that savers cut the yield by around £0.2bn a year across taxes. It publishes no split by tax or year, so we can't yet say how much of the gap that response explains.
  • Behaviour belongs in the microsimulation, not the dataset. A savings response would be an opt-in policyengine-uk behaviour. The national already carries what it would read: ISA subscriptions, and so unused allowance, and taxable interest.
  • Dashboard: it shows static figures, and savings stays held back there until the comparison is settled.
  • Payment timing: the costing's +£125m and +£555m in 2027-28 and 2028-29 carry the Self Assessment catch-up.

Impact

  • The UK model pin moves from 2.151.0 to 2.164.2. The data moves from the 2.151.0 pair (a6299504 and c9df4b86) to 0a4c8e2c, with (a) or (b) for the local area. UK results change with both.

Commits

  • 59662673: the national and the local area, certified by one certify-data run. It also has the lock, the release lock, the TROs, the certified test constants and the changelog fragment.
  • 6b2d0b9f: the household calculator snapshots, regenerated on 2.164.2 (PE_UPDATE_SNAPSHOTS=1). The UK households and the model surface move with the model; the US snapshots don't change.

How it was made

uv sync --frozen --extra uk --extra dev --python 3.13
uv pip install policyengine-uk==2.164.2
python scripts/audit_regional_input_surface.py \
  --regional-manifest-uri "hf://dataset/policyengine/populace-uk-private@microcosm-uk-2024-25-dense-20261027T154955Z-6528c865/releases/microcosm-uk-2024-25-dense/release_manifest.json" \
  --artifact microcosm_uk_2024_25_dense=<the cut's H5> --model-version 2.164.2 \
  --audited-by juaristi22 --limitation "<the limitations in the regional record>" \
  --output regional_input_surface.json
python scripts/bundle.py certify-data --country uk --data-producer populace \
  --manifest-uri "hf://dataset/policyengine/populace-uk-private@microcosm-uk-2024-25-national-20261031T181401Z-0a4c8e2c/releases/microcosm-uk-2024-25-national/release_manifest.json" \
  --regional-manifest-uri "hf://dataset/policyengine/populace-uk-private@microcosm-uk-2024-25-dense-20261027T154955Z-6528c865/releases/microcosm-uk-2024-25-dense/release_manifest.json" \
  --model-version 2.164.2 \
  --accept-regional-model-mismatch "<the reason in the regional record>" \
  --regional-input-surface-evidence regional_input_surface.json
uvx --from uv==0.13.4 uv lock --no-config --no-sources --default-index https://pypi.org/simple --python 3.13
uv sync --frozen --extra uk --extra dev --python 3.13
python scripts/release_lock.py
python scripts/bundle.py generate --include-tros
PE_UPDATE_SNAPSHOTS=1 python -m pytest tests/test_household_calculator_snapshot.py -q
python scripts/bundle.py check
python scripts/bundle.py check --include-tros --strict-tros
python scripts/check_uk_uc_floor.py --dataset microcosm_uk_2024_25 --year 2025 --output uc_floor.json

uk_qualification.rewrite_certified_constants rewrote the certified constants in tests/test_models.py, tests/test_release_manifests.py and tests/test_uk_regions.py.

Evidence run on this head

  • The UC floor passed (check_uk_uc_floor.py, Great Britain, 2025, within 10%). The receipt holds weighted national totals only:

    • benefit units at 0.921 of DWP's figure;
    • spend at 0.951 of the OBR's.

    It took 119 s and peaked at 8.2 GB.

  • Both bundle.py check runs pass, the second with --include-tros --strict-tros.

  • Locally, 435 tests pass on the release manifests, UK regions, models, household snapshots, UC floor, bundle, TRO, certification, regional-evidence, pin and release-lock paths. The full suite runs in CI.

Disclosure

Aggregates only: weighted national totals over many records, and published HMRC, ONS, DWP, OBR and Treasury figures.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

juaristi22 and others added 2 commits November 1, 2026 11:18
…e2c national, 6528c865 local area)

One certify-data run: the national microcosm-uk-2024-25-national-20261031T181401Z-0a4c8e2c
certifies on its own build (policyengine-uk 2.164.2); the local-area cut
microcosm-uk-2024-25-dense-20261027T154955Z-6528c865 routes on the accepted
model mismatch, with its input surface re-audited for 2.164.2 (no dropped
column; five inputs added after 2.162.12 take their defaults). Also the
relock, the release lock, the TROs, the certified test constants and the
changelog fragment.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
PE_UPDATE_SNAPSHOTS=1. The UK households and the model surface move with
the model; the US snapshots are unchanged.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@juaristi22

juaristi22 commented Nov 1, 2026 •

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Property income rates +2pp: what moved, and how it compares with the OBR's income tax line

Edited 1 Nov after Max's review: compared with the OBR's income tax line rather than the Table 6.1 total, and the partnership rescale is withdrawn.

The table splits the measure's 2029-30 yield into its two parts:

  • The rate part: 2 points more tax on property profit outside Scotland.
  • The relief part: 2 points more finance-cost relief. Relief follows the property basic rate UK-wide, so it covers Scottish landlords too.

Measures and setup are as in the body's table: the dashboard's measure, policyengine-uk 2.162.14, change in income tax in £bn.

National Yield Rate part Relief part Landlords' finance costs, 2024-25
Published (a6299504) +0.429 +0.659 −0.231 £9.65bn
#728 (4374e0bf) +0.416 +0.653 −0.237 £10.07bn
This cut (0a4c8e2c) +0.402 +0.653 −0.251 £10.59bn
Official +0.435

What moved: the relief part.

Against the OBR's income tax line.

  • The OBR's income tax line for the measure is +£394m, +£403m and +£412m in 2029-30 to 2031-32. The Table 6.1 total (+£435m in 2029-30) adds onshore corporation tax and two Scottish lines, which the model doesn't cover.
  • This cut is 2–4% above the income tax line, so there's no shortfall to explain. EFO paragraph 3.17 puts landlords' response (incorporation and non-compliance) at about £0.1bn a year.
  • Withdrawn: "the model reproduces the costing once partnerships are in". The rescale to PRIS's base for individuals and partnerships lands about 10% above the income tax line and quantifies no omission.

Partnership property income: a lead, not a quantified gap.

  • The costing's base (policy costings, p.74) "consists of all individuals and partnerships that receive property income".
  • HMRC's documentation doesn't say whether SPI's property income includes partners' shares. The totals bound it:
    • The SPI public use tape documentation defines it as net income from UK and overseas property. PRIS's individuals report UK property only.
    • This cut carries £32.8bn of property profit before finance costs and 2.82m landlords. PRIS 2024-25 gives individuals about £30.9bn and 2.85m landlords; partnerships add about £6.2bn of profit and £1.7bn of finance costs.
    • So this cut is £1.9bn above PRIS's individuals and £4.3bn below individuals and partnerships. At most £1.9bn of the partnerships' £6.2bn could be in it, and less to the extent overseas property fills that excess.
    • Partners are taxed on their shares as property income: the SA800 partnership statement allocates UK property income to each partner. So the engine would tax them if the data carried them.
  • PRIS doesn't split finance costs by entity, so any individuals' share of them is pro rata.

Bringing it in.

  • The only published source is PRIS by tax entity: Tables 1, 2 and 6 give partnerships' landlord count, receipts and expenses for 2020-21 to 2024-25. It is already in the pinned Chronicle feed.
  • No public microdata names partners. The SPI tape has one property variable, so carrying partnership property income in the national means assigning it to landlords by an imputation, controlled to the PRIS totals.
  • Finance costs together with it. Nothing binds landlords' finance costs today, and they moved the yield between builds. Binding them belongs in the same change.
  • That is a candidate follow-up for PolicyEngine/microcosm.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

@MaxGhenis MaxGhenis left a comment

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Thanks María. You've added gross receipts to the national data, and we now estimate a £148m trading allowance cost in 2028-29.

Could we compare the savings and property estimates with the OBR's income tax lines before publishing them? Since 28 October, we've compared each estimate with the OBR line that covers what we model. We keep Table 6.1 totals as context, as we do in Tables 6 and 7 of the briefing. You use Table 6.1 totals in the Official column.

Measure Year This cut OBR line This cut against that line Table 6.1 total
Savings income rates 2029-30 +582 +443 exceeds by 31% +520
2030-31 +611 +475 exceeds by 29% +555
2031-32 +636 +510 exceeds by 25% +590
Property income rates 2029-30 +402 +394 exceeds by 2% +435
2030-31 +417 +403 exceeds by 3% +445
2031-32 +429 +412 exceeds by 4% +455
Trading allowance 2028-29 −148 −221 trails by 33% −225
2029-30 −149 −165 trails by 10% −165
2030-31 −148 −171 trails by 14% −175
2031-32 −147 −178 trails by 17% −180

Figures in £ million. We compare savings and property with income tax (measures 62 and 61), and the trading allowance with income tax plus NICs (measure 15).

For savings in 2029-30, the OBR reports £443m of income tax and £78m of onshore corporation tax, £521m in all, and the Treasury rounds that to £520m. You report a scaled £521m, which matches that total and exceeds the income tax line by £78m, or 18%.

In EFO paragraph 3.17, the OBR estimates that savers reduce the yield by around £0.2bn a year, mainly by using tax-advantaged assets such as ISAs. Could you drop "leaves little room for the costing's ISA shifting" and "ISA shifting then looks small"? If we add all £0.2bn to 2029-30 income tax, our £582m would trail the roughly £640m static estimate by about 10%. But the OBR gives no split of the reduction by tax or year, so we can't derive a static income tax line.

We need a verified reason for the 2029-30 and 2030-31 savings gaps before publishing, since both exceed our 25% bar. Our 2031-32 estimate exceeds the income tax line by 24.7%. Could you revise "Why savings sits above the costing" and #1428's savings lines against the income tax lines?

For property in 2029-30, the OBR reports £394m of income tax and £39m across onshore corporation tax and two Scottish lines. The Treasury rounds the £433m total to £435m. You report a rescaled £434m, which exceeds the income tax line by 10%; our published £429m exceeds it by 9%. The OBR estimates that landlords reduce the yield by £0.1bn a year through incorporation and non-compliance. We can use your PRIS bounds to investigate missing partnership income, but we can't quantify any omission from the rescale.

@juaristi22

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Thanks @MaxGhenis, agreed on all four points. The model covers income tax, and income tax plus NICs for the trading allowance, so those are the right lines to compare with.

Could you verify the savings reading? I'd like your check on whether the savers' response really drives most of the gap, before we rely on it. The evidence is below. What I can't verify is how the OBR's response splits by tax.

Savings. Against the income tax line we sit 31%, 29% and 25% above. That compares our static figure with a line after behaviour.

  • What sets our figure.
  • What the OBR's own figures imply.
    • EFO paragraph 3.17 gives the measure about £0.6bn a year after behaviour and puts the savers' response at around £0.2bn a year, mainly ISAs.
    • That puts the static yield at roughly £0.75bn across all taxes.
    • Our static income tax averages about £0.61bn over 2029-30 to 2031-32: below that, not above it.
  • What isn't verified:
    • the size of the response;
    • its split between income tax and the £78m of corporation tax;
    • whether the costing's base grows like HMRC's projection or in proportion to income, which would make it up to 13% lower.
  • So the gap reads as at least half behaviour, probably most of it. That reading is what I'm asking you to verify: from the OBR's static costing by tax if you can get it, or from your own reading of the costing.
  • Withdrawn: both ISA phrases and my base-level explanation. My scaled £521m had matched the Table 6.1 total, which includes the corporation tax we don't model.
  • Behaviour belongs in the microsimulation, not the dataset, and the dashboard shows static figures. If the reading holds, should the bar compare our static figure with the OBR's implied static range? Until then savings stays held back from the dashboard.

Property.

Trading allowance.

Revised:

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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Thanks María. The OBR and the government publish no static costing by tax in the policy table, the EFO or the costing note, so we can't settle "at least half" from published figures. The OBR estimates that savers cut the yield by around £0.2bn a year across taxes, while we hold savers' choices fixed.

The government leaves ISA returns out of the costing's tax base (costing, p.75), so savers moving into ISAs cut the income tax line. The OBR also scores keeping the cash ISA limit at £20,000 on income tax alone, about −£35m in 2029-30 (policy table, measure 11), and the government gives that measure "no static impact" (costing, p.19). Neither of them sizes the income tax loss from ISA shifting under the savings rise, or splits its effects across taxes. Neither the OBR nor the government explains the £78m of corporation tax, which starts at +£13m in 2026-27, before the rates rise.

Your £0.75bn includes that corporation tax, so we can compare our estimates with the OBR's income tax line plus an assumed response on income tax:

Assumed response on income tax, each year Implied static income tax, 2029-30 to 2031-32 Our estimates
£75m £518m, £550m, £585m exceed it by 12%, 11% and 9%
£150m £593m, £625m, £660m trail it by 2%, 2% and 4%
£200m £643m, £675m, £710m trail it by 9%, 9% and 10%
£250m £693m, £725m, £760m trail it by 16%, 16% and 16%

About £70m a year on income tax would cover half of the gap, and about £140m all of it. At least £23m a year would bring our excess under 25% in all three years. Your review of PolicyEngine/microcosm#1428 also finds that our model includes annuity and trust income in the savings measure's base (finding 1). Our estimates and these amounts can move with the rebuild.

The government grows the 2023-24 SPI base "using the OBR's forecast for growth in savings income" (costing, p.75), but it doesn't say whether that growth applies before the frozen allowances. If the static income tax line trailed ours by 13%, the income tax response would come to about £63m, £57m and £43m, under a third of the OBR's £0.2bn. Neither the OBR nor the government publishes enough detail to rule out those amounts.

The OBR counts Self Assessment receipts in its line, and we count liabilities. Taxpayers who make payments on account normally base them on an earlier bill and settle the balance later, so growing savings liabilities can widen the gap from 2029-30 too.

Could you replace "So the gap reads as at least half behaviour, and probably most of it" in the PR with "The OBR estimates that savers cut the yield by around £0.2bn a year across taxes. It publishes no split by tax or year, so we can't yet say how much of the gap that response explains"? Could you also drop "matters only before 2029-30"?

For the trading allowance, could you replace the sentence beginning "The rest is" with "The government includes traders switching to the allowance in its costing but doesn't quantify that response. This scoring engine also doesn't relieve miscellaneous income (PolicyEngine/policyengine-uk#2726)"?

I'll come back on the bar and on whether we can get the split from the OBR, and we'll keep savings off the dashboard until then.

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Review of 6b2d0b9

Max's three requested edits are all in the body: his savings sentence replaces "at least half behaviour", "matters only before 2029-30" is gone, and the trading allowance sentence is his. The two ISA phrases from his first review are gone too. I don't repeat his points below, and I leave the (a)/(b) local-area choice to him.

Must

  1. The bundled national carries two findings marked "fix before the national is used". The review of microcosm#1428 at a8e25870c lists findings 1 (annuity and trust income) and 2 (non-claimants' receipts above £3,000) under that heading and says this cut carries both. The follow-up says Certify the Microcosm UK national from microcosm#1428 on policyengine-uk 2.164.2 (0a4c8e2c; local area 6528c865 or c9df4b86) #731 "still bundles a8e25870c's cut" and that a national from 9f70c71e7 is certified and staged. The body doesn't mention either. Finding 1 is separate from #2736: it moves baseline means-tested benefits and household income, so distributional results on this cut are affected by both. Could the body say which national this PR is meant to carry, and list findings 1 and 2 under "Before the dashboard moves to this bundle" if it stays on 0a4c8e2c?

Should

  1. Which engine for the next national? The pin follows the build engine (built_with_model_package), so 2.164.2 is right for 0a4c8e2c. But microcosm#1422 (merged 1 Nov) moved Microcosm's lock to policyengine-uk 2.165.1, microcosm#1430 (company cars) merged today, and policyengine-uk#2736 landed after 2.164.2. If the staged 9f70c71e7 national, or a later one, is built on 2.165.x, this PR's pin and lock change with it (pyproject.toml:45). One line in the body on which engine the carried national uses would settle it.
  2. Rescore on the pinned engine before the table is relied on. Every column is scored on 2.162.14, so nothing in the table is a number this bundle produces. The rescore concerns the national table only; it doesn't bear on (a) versus (b), which affects area runs.
  3. Savings, £0.75bn. £0.6bn plus £0.2bn is £0.8bn; the £0.75bn looks like Table 6.1's three-year average (£0.555bn) plus £0.2bn. Worth saying which.

Nits

  1. Snapshots: uk_couple_two_kids.json:16-22 gains £870.20 in benefits and net income with HBAI net income unchanged; uk_single_adult_no_income.json:13-15 and uk_single_parent_one_child.json:13-15 gain £150 in HBAI net income with net income unchanged. Naming the policyengine-uk changes behind each would show they're intended.
  2. Property comment: 86% of £12.82bn is £11.0bn, not £11.1bn, unless the share is nearer 87%. The decomposition says every row uses 2.162.14, while the body's Published column is "on a6299504 with 2.151.0"; both show +0.429, so it would help to say which.

Arithmetic checked, no slips: savings 31/29/25% (2031-32 is 24.7%), property 2/3/4%, trading allowance 10-17% from 2029-30 (33% in 2028-29), #728's 30-33% and 31-36% and 6-8%, Carer's Allowance 92.5% and 91.3% of Table 6.1 (#728 about 40%), electricity 4% and 9% (#728 11% and 16%), and the relief decomposition (rate plus relief equals yield within £1m rounding; £14m and £20m of £27m).

CI: Test (3.12) was cancelled at the Test job's 90-minute timeout (.github/workflows/pr_code_changes.yaml:179), at 94% with 4,161 passed and none failed. 3.11, 3.13 and 3.14 passed in 84, 77 and 59 minutes. It needs a rerun of that job for a green check; nothing points to a code failure. 3.11 at 84 minutes is close to the same limit.

Verdict: pins and certified constants are consistent; the open question is item 1, which the body should state before this leaves draft.

What I checked: the body against both of Max's reviews; the diff: H5 sha256 f8543876…c38444c9e in both manifest places; release ids and manifest URIs for national and local area; policyengine-uk 2.164.2 in pyproject.toml, uv.lock and the manifest, with the wheel sha256 matching PyPI; core 3.33.3 with core_binding: bundle_pin; the regional record (reason updated off the 2.162.14 wording, five defaulted inputs, 89 never-modelled columns, no dropped column); the certified test constants (no 2.151.0, a6299504 or c9df4b86 left in tests); the table arithmetic; CI logs.

Not verified: the H5 contents and HF manifests (private data, not downloaded); the scores themselves; the snapshot values; the UC floor receipt. No local build or test run.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

@juaristi22

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The cash ISA limit and the Machine Games Duty rise on this national (Budget 2026, Table 6.1 rows 11 and 56)

Measured on 0a4c8e2c with policyengine-uk 2.164.2, this PR's pin. Figures are in £ million and static unless stated.

Cash ISA limit kept at £20,000 (row 11)

2027-28 2028-29 2029-30 2030-31 2031-32
This cut, interest at Bank Rate (EFO Table A.3, as the modifier) −36 −146 −324 −578 −861
This cut, interest at the OBR's deposit rate (EFO Table 1.9) −18 −66 −138 −266 −433
OBR income tax line (Table 1.1, measure 11) −4 −20 −35 −52 −72
Table 6.1 −5 −20 −35 −50 −70
  • The data look right. In 2024-25 there are 8.2m cash ISA payers under 65, and 33% of them pay in more than £12,000. That is about £18.5bn a year above £12,000. HMRC's impact note gives 22% for 2022-23, before cash ISA payments more than doubled.
  • The gap is the assumption about where the excess goes.
    • The costing has "no static impact on taxpayer liabilities", so its whole cost is the savers' response.
    • Pre-Budget law kept the £20,000 ISA limit, so the excess could have gone into a stocks-and-shares ISA, tax-free. The OBR's line implies most of it would have. The modifier's rule taxes all of it.
    • Neither HMRC nor the OBR publishes that split, so a population figure on the modifier's rule shouldn't be shown.
  • Not scorable on this cut:
    • the Lifetime ISA withdrawal charge cut (row 39) needs withdrawals, which the data don't carry;
    • the First Time Buyer ISA (row 38) isn't in policyengine-uk.

Machine Games Duty: 20% to 25% on machines with a stake above £1 or a prize above £100 (row 56)

2027-28 2028-29 2029-30 2030-31 2031-32
This cut, higher-stake share 75.7% +118 +119 +119 +119 +119
This cut, all standard-rate machines (bound) +156 +157 +157 +157 +158
OBR betting and gaming line (Table 1.1, measure 56) +144 +162 +158 +156 +156
Costing note, rate rise only (after behaviour, net of corporation tax) +135 +130 +130 +130 +130

Measure 56 also carries the supplier-liability change from 2028-29: +20, +15, +15 and +10 in the costing note. Table 6.1 combines the two in one row: +135, +150, +145, +145, +145.

The higher-stake share.

  • Where 75.7% comes from. It is the Gambling Commission's Category B machine GGY in licensed premises in Great Britain over HMRC's standard-rate base. Every Category B machine passes the new test.
    • The Commission's figure is £2,289.8m in 2024-25 (Industry Statistics, September 2026, sheet 4).
    • HMRC's base is £3,023.7m (UK Betting and Gaming Statistics, Table 2a: £604.7m of liabilities at 20%).
  • It is stable: 75.4% in 2023-24 and 76.4% in 2025-26.
  • It is a floor.
    • Members' clubs' B3A and B4 machines are in HMRC's base but not in the Commission's data. They run under council permits, and no national statistics exist. Northern Ireland is missing too.
    • Pubs have only Category C and D machines, which stay at 20%. So applying the licensed-premises mix to every machine (88.6%) overstates.
  • No official share exists. HMRC's policy paper and the costing note publish no base or share. Backing one out of the OBR's figures under the costing's behaviour gives roughly 75–90%, about 80% in the middle. That is an inference. It uses measure 56 net of the supplier-liability part (Table 1.1) and the duty forecast (Table 4.10).
  • Growth matters more than the share. The OBR's duty forecast grows 10.6% from 2024-25 to 2026-27, while policyengine-uk holds gambling takings flat. With that growth, 75.7% gives about £133m in 2027-28, against the OBR's ~£144m.

Disclosure

Weighted national totals and shares only. Every figure rests on well over 10 source households.

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@vahid-ahmadi

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Follow-up on 6b2d0b9

The head, title and body are as they were at my review this morning (the body was last edited on 1 Nov at 16:52), so all of its items are still open:

  1. Which national the PR carries, given microcosm#1428's findings 1 and 2 on a8e25870c: still open, and still the one to settle before this leaves draft.
  2. Engine for the next national: open. See new item 7 below, which adds a reason.
  3. Rescore on 2.164.2: open. The table still says "a rescore there can follow".
  4. Savings, £0.75bn against £0.6bn plus £0.2bn: open.
  5. and 6. The snapshot and property nits: open.

On the cash ISA and Machine Games Duty comment (11:03)

The sourced figures check out:

  • Table 6.1 row 11 (−5, −20, −35, −50, −70) and row 56 (+135, +150, +145, +145, +145) match the Budget document.
  • OBR Table 1.1 (policy detailed forecast tables): measure 11 income tax −3.7, −19.8, −34.9, −51.7, −71.9; measure 56 betting +144.2, +162.3, +157.6, +155.9, +156.4. All round to your figures.
  • The costing notes say what you quote: the cash ISA costing has "no static impact on taxpayer liabilities", with the whole cost from savers using cash ISAs up to £20,000; the rate rise is +135 then +130 a year after behaviour and corporation tax; the supplier change is +20, +15, +15, +10 from 2028-29.
  • Arithmetic: £3.11bn × 20% = £0.62bn, 2.9% above HMRC's £604.7m; £604.7m / 20% = £3,024m; £2,289.8m / £3,023.7m = 75.7%; 5% × 75.7% × £3.11bn = £118m; 5% × £3.11bn = £156m.
  • The engine point holds. On policyengine-uk main (2.170.0), cash_isa_subscriptions_above_limit and isa_subscriptions_above_limit are still read only by the ISA variables and their tests, not by any tax variable. Your note that the measure scores £0 on the engine alone, and the choice not to show a population figure on the modifier's rule, both follow from that.

Should

  1. From policyengine-uk 2.167.0, the rate rise would score £0 on a national without the split. Charge higher-stake machines at the Machine Games Duty higher rate from April 2027 policyengine-uk#2731 shipped in 2.167.0. Its machine_games_standard_rate_higher_stake_net_takings defaults to 0, and machine_games_duty charges the higher rate only on that input. Your comment says the split is held in PR C, so this national doesn't store it; on 2.167 or later the engine would score the rate rise at £0 without warning, as the cash ISA measure does today. If the next national is built on 2.167 or later without the split, a line under "Before the dashboard moves to this bundle" would cover it.

Nit

  1. "With that growth, 75.7% gives about £133m in 2027-28": £118m × 1.106 is £130m. £133m fits growth on to 2027-28 instead (for example HMRC's 2024-25 liabilities to the OBR's 2027-28 forecast less measure 56). Saying which path it uses would help.

Verdict: the 11:03 figures are sound and the method is stated honestly. Nothing in it changes the PR; item 1 is still the one to settle before this leaves draft.

CI: Test (3.12) has not been rerun. Run 41301516796 is still on attempt 1, with that job cancelled at the timeout; 3.11, 3.13 and 3.14 passed.

What I checked: the PR body, title, edit history and timeline since my review; the 11:03 comment against Table 6.1 and the policy costing note (both in uk-autumn-budget-dashboard-2026 data_inputs), OBR October 2026 EFO detailed forecast tables 1.1 and 4.10, and EFO paragraph 4.45; policyengine-uk main for the ISA and Machine Games Duty variables and the CHANGELOG entry for #2731; the check runs on the head.

Not verified: the cut's own figures (8.2m payers, 33%, £18.5bn, the £3.11bn base, the ISA scores); the Gambling Commission and HMRC statistics behind 75.7%, 75.4%, 76.4% and 88.6%; HMRC's 22%; SI 2026/1018; the 10.6% growth (Table 4.10 has no 2024-25 column); the Bank Rate and deposit rate paths; the 75–90% back-out.

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@juaristi22

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Cash ISA limit kept at £20,000 (row 11): what decides the taxed share, and how to treat the excess

cc @vahid-ahmadi. This follows up the measurements above. No official source gives the share of the excess that would have been taxed. The survey evidence and the OBR's own figures narrow it enough to choose a treatment, and the interest rate matters as much as the share.

The evidence

  • The costing of the cut (Budget 2025 policy costings, p. 79).
    • The base was the returns of under-65s "who had planned to subscribe more than £12,000" into cash ISAs, from ISA providers' data matched to the SPI.
    • It allowed only "a number of small behaviours", including switching between savings products.
    • It was bundled with Help to Save.
  • The OBR's November 2025 policy table (Table 2.1, measure 79) splits that bundle. Its income tax line is −6, −9, +3, +14 and +29 (£m, 2026-27 to 2030-31). The early losses are savers filling £20,000 before the cut.
  • The reversal (Budget 2026 policy costings, p. 19).
    • It has "no static impact on taxpayer liabilities", so the whole cost is savers moving cash back into ISAs.
    • The base grows with the OBR's forecast of "returns on savings deposits".
    • The OBR's income tax line is −4, −20, −35, −52 and −72 (2027-28 to 2031-32).
  • HMRC's impact note (September 2026).
    • 22% of cash ISA savers under 65 paid in more than £12,000 in 2022-23.
    • Under the old law, transfers from stocks-and-shares to cash ISAs were to be blocked, and interest on cash held in stocks-and-shares ISAs charged. So holding cash in a stocks-and-shares ISA was not a tax-free route.
  • Paragon Bank's survey of over 1,100 active cash ISA savers under 65, who could pick more than one option:
    • 46% would put the excess in a non-ISA account;
    • 29% in a stocks-and-shares ISA;
    • 16% in Premium Bonds;
    • 15% in pensions;
    • 62% said they would be unlikely to invest instead.

What each treatment gives on this national

Income tax, Budget against pre-Budget law, £m. The engine (policyengine-uk 2.164.2) runs on the households holding an under-65 cash ISA saver above £12,000, which is exact for income tax.

  • Rate: the OBR's deposit rate (EFO Table 1.9) or Bank Rate (Table A.3).
  • Taxed share: applied to each saver's excess.
  • Build-up: each earlier year's excess is held all year, or only this year's excess counts.
Treatment 2027-28 2028-29 2029-30 2030-31 2031-32
All taxed, Bank Rate, build-up (the dashboard modifier's rule) −36 −146 −324 −578 −861
All taxed, deposit rate, build-up −18 −66 −138 −266 −433
46% taxed (survey), Bank Rate, build-up −16 −55 −98 −172 −270
46% taxed (survey), deposit rate, build-up −8 −29 −53 −85 −128
All taxed, deposit rate, this year's excess only −18 −21 −22 −25 −27
46% taxed (survey), deposit rate, this year's excess only −8 −9 −10 −11 −12
OBR income tax line −4 −20 −35 −52 −72

The proposed treatment

  • Rate: the OBR's deposit rate, as the costing grows its base on deposit returns. This alone halves the figure.
  • Build-up: keep it. The OBR's line rises steadily each year, as a build-up does. Counting only this year's excess gives a flat line.
  • Taxed share: a stated parameter, defaulting to the survey's ~45%. That lands at about 1.5 times the OBR's line. Reproducing the OBR's line exactly needs about a third. I'd show the survey-based figure beside the OBR's, with the share's source.
  • The gap left:
    • The data's 2024-25 payments come from a year when cash ISA payments had more than doubled since 2022-23.
    • Repeating them every year probably overstates the excess somewhat. Counting only each year's own excess gives the floor.

Weighted national totals only. Every figure rests on well over 10 source households.

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