You will be impacted by tax-raising budget for years to come- Rachel Reeves

When Rachel Reeves becomes the first woman to brandish a red box outside Number 11 in the middle of the morning on Wednesday, no special Budget red box has been commissioned for her. 

There won't be many jokes or frills, and don't expect a big surprise. 

Liz Truss's abacus economists, bean counters, and data crunchers have regained their dominance. A boffin's budget will be in that repurposed red box. 

It is, in fact, the complete antithesis of everything that was included in Truss's and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's notorious mini-Budget two years ago. 

Truss later concluded that the forecaster was involved in a "deep state" plot against her leadership after they infamously turned down an offer of an Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast. 

This time, in addition to what has seemed like a protracted pre-Budget preparation schedule, the OBR has completed its comprehensive 10-week back-and-forth examination of the public finances as well as all of the tax and spend policy initiatives Reeves is contemplating. 

The economy has been negatively impacted by the protracted three-month post-election wait, which has also affected company and consumer confidence. 

Business executives tell me that while they can handle tax increases, extended uncertainty depresses the economy. Some believe that a chance to seize a major summer turning point—a new stable administration and finally lowering interest rates—was lost after three years of rolling crises. 

However, this might be the moment of change. This budget is a component of a major shift in the world economy. The opposite has replaced years of increased government borrowing and expenditure, as well as higher interest rates to curb uncontrollably high inflation. The new normal is stricter fiscal policy (more taxes plus borrowing limits) and looser monetary policy (falling interest rates). 

Numerous tax increases are included in that budget box. 

Listing the ones that won't be going up may have been simpler. As I have stated, the increase in employers' National Insurance Contributions (NICs) will be the most noticeable. 

I am aware that in July, Reeves received internal advice to simply undo the Conservatives' "unfunded" 2% reduction in employees' National Insurance. She insisted, however, that she could not break her electoral pledge to refrain from raising this type of NICs. 

There will undoubtedly be a heated debate about whether increasing employer NICs is equivalent to doing the same thing. Labour officials claim they were attacked on this issue in Conservative advertisements and cite a paragraph in their election materials that highlighted the platform commitment only related to employee NICs. That suggests that a hike in employer NICs was permitted by the carefully worded Labour manifesto.