Video: Tax rises and spending cuts 'very likely' after next election, warns IFS According to the country's leading public finance think-tank, the IFS the Chancellor will need to borrow £64 billion more than he planned in 2015 because of the poor performance of the economy. Mr Johnson warned that it may mean that spending on services like the police, defence, transport and justice would be cut by a third by 2017/18 under current Government spending plans. "That looks really difficult," he said. More likely, I suspect, is that whoever wins the next election will do some spending cuts but also increase taxes following that election - as has happened after nearly every election over the last 30 years. He warned that: "Something of the order of two pence on the basic rate of income tax or a couple of pence on VAT or a whole series of increases to other bits of tax certainly look on the cards. Given where we are, it's highly unlikely we're going to be in anything other than a difficult place come the next election. That means the next government is going to have three choices; they can either borrow more - that's one option, they could tax more, or they could spend less. Those really are the only three things that they'll have open to them.