Autumn statement unlikely to put big dent in tax burden - here's why

It's autumn statement time. Once upon a time, these winter budgets used to be brief updates on the fiscal forecasts, never overshadowing the far more substantial main budget in the spring. Or at least so we're told. In practice, for as long as I've been covering economics, the autumn statement (or, as Gordon Brown used to call it, the pre-budget report) has simply been the chancellor's second bite of the fiscal apple - a budget in all but name. In …