Active voice in the fuel duty and PTA posts

app/src/data/posts/articles/fuel-duty-cut-extension.md

@@ -501,21 +501,21 @@ In cash terms, the average gain in 2027-28 rises from £12 in the lowest income
 }
 ```
 
-The absolute poverty rate before housing costs does not change. This rate counts people whose household's equivalised income before housing costs, after direct taxes but before taxes on spending such as fuel duty and VAT, is below 60% of the 2024-25 median, held constant in real terms. The Gini index of equivalised household net income falls by 0.01% in 2026-27 and 0.02% in 2027-28.
+The absolute poverty rate before housing costs does not change. This rate counts people whose household's equivalised income before housing costs, after direct taxes but before taxes on spending such as fuel duty and VAT, falls below 60% of the 2024-25 median, held constant in real terms. The Gini index of equivalised household net income falls by 0.01% in 2026-27 and 0.02% in 2027-28.
 
 ## Appendix
 
 ### Households and tax years
 
 PolicyEngine UK's tax years run from 6 April to 5 April, so 2026-27 covers 1 January to 5 April 2027 and 2027-28 covers 6 April to 30 June 2027. The government's estimate uses fiscal years from 1 April to 31 March, so the first five days of April 2027 fall in a different year.
 
-Net income is PolicyEngine UK's household net income: income from all sources and benefits, less direct taxes, council tax, the TV licence and the modelled duties, with the VAT change on fuel included. All three households in the net income table live in London, PolicyEngine UK's default region, and use 1,000 litres of fuel a year. The 2027-28 benefit amounts are PolicyEngine UK projections on the OBR's October 2026 forecast, the forecast that PolicyEngine's Autumn Budget 2026 dashboard uses.
+Net income is PolicyEngine UK's household net income: income from all sources and benefits, less direct taxes, council tax, the TV licence and the modelled duties; it also counts the VAT change on fuel. All three households in the net income table live in London, PolicyEngine UK's default region, and use 1,000 litres of fuel a year. The 2027-28 benefit amounts are PolicyEngine UK projections on the OBR's October 2026 forecast, the forecast that PolicyEngine's Autumn Budget 2026 dashboard uses.
 
 - **Single adult:** aged 40, with a £30,000 salary and no benefits.
 - **Couple with two children on Universal Credit:** both aged 35, with children aged 8 and 5. One earns £25,000. They rent privately for £9,600 a year, pay £1,800 in council tax and claim Universal Credit.
 - **Pensioner on Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction:** aged 72, on the full new State Pension (£13,036 in 2027-28). They rent from the council for £7,800 a year and pay £1,600 in council tax. Their income exceeds the Pension Credit guarantee, so they get no Pension Credit. Their net income includes the £200 Winter Fuel Payment.
 
-The model's pump prices are fixed and below October 2026 prices, when diesel exceeded £2 a litre, so the same spending buys fewer litres today.
+The model uses fixed pump prices below those of October 2026, when diesel exceeded £2 a litre, so the same spending buys fewer litres today.
 
 ### Projections, prices and coverage
 
@@ -529,7 +529,7 @@ PolicyEngine's Autumn Budget 2026 dashboard runs the same measure on its represe
 
 ### Comparison with the Treasury and the OBR
 
-PolicyEngine's total cost is the fall in fuel duty plus the fall in VAT on the lower pump price; no benefit changes, so it equals the rise in household net income, and negative figures are costs. VAT is 17% of the total. The government's estimate appears in the OBR's policy table as fuel duty receipts only, −£574 million and −£782 million, with no VAT line (Economic and fiscal outlook, October 2026, detailed forecast tables, policy, Table 1.1). The OBR used it but could not certify it: small changes were made to the policy after the OBR's certification deadline, and the OBR will finalise the certification at its next forecast (Economic and fiscal outlook, October 2026, chapter 3, footnote 1). The two estimates also differ in coverage and timing. PolicyEngine covers the petrol and diesel that households buy, which carry £13.4 billion of fuel duty in 2026-27 in PolicyEngine's data; the OBR expects £24 billion of fuel duty receipts in that year. The Treasury's base is every litre of taxable fuel made available for use in the UK, which includes fuel that businesses buy, and its costing allows for people buying more fuel when pump prices fall (policy costings, page 13). PolicyEngine gives the change in liability in each tax year, from 6 April; the government's estimate gives the change in receipts in each fiscal year, from 1 April.
+PolicyEngine's total cost is the fall in fuel duty plus the fall in VAT on the lower pump price; no benefit changes, so it equals the rise in household net income, and negative figures are costs. VAT is 17% of the total. The government's estimate appears in the OBR's policy table as fuel duty receipts only, −£574 million and −£782 million, with no VAT line (Economic and fiscal outlook, October 2026, detailed forecast tables, policy, Table 1.1). The OBR used it but could not certify it: the policy changed slightly after the OBR's certification deadline, and the OBR will finalise the certification at its next forecast (Economic and fiscal outlook, October 2026, chapter 3, footnote 1). The two estimates also differ in coverage and timing. PolicyEngine covers the petrol and diesel that households buy, which carry £13.4 billion of fuel duty in 2026-27 in PolicyEngine's data; the OBR expects £24 billion of fuel duty receipts in that year. The Treasury's base is every litre of taxable fuel made available for use in the UK, which includes fuel that businesses buy, and its costing allows for people buying more fuel when pump prices fall (policy costings, page 13). PolicyEngine gives the change in liability in each tax year, from 6 April; the government's estimate gives the change in receipts in each fiscal year, from 1 April.
 
 ### Assumptions and limitations
 
@@ -546,6 +546,6 @@ The Budget estimates that the government's fuel duty decisions in this Parliamen
 
 We used the `policyengine` Python package (version 6.11.1) with PolicyEngine UK (version 2.151.0). We ran `calculate_household` for each household with two parameter reforms to the fuel duty rate on petrol and diesel: one with the pre-Budget rates and one with the Budget rates, each keyed to the dates above. PolicyEngine UK keys its April 2027 rate at 59.75p, uprated by the March 2026 RPI forecast, so both scenarios replace it with 60.59p. PolicyEngine UK weights each rate by the days it applies in the tax year. The net income table and the marginal rates run on the OBR October 2026 forecast: we build each household as a PolicyEngine UK simulation with the dashboard's forecast scenario, applied before data load, and add the measure to the same scenario. The duty and VAT savings do not depend on the forecast.
 
-PolicyEngine UK holds spending on fuel fixed and does not pass a duty change into VAT, so we add 20% of the duty change for the VAT on the pump price. In those simulations, the VAT step lowers the household's `vat` by that amount, so the change flows through `vat_change` into `household_net_income`, as the dashboard's VAT modifier does. We use the rates, dates and VAT treatment of the fuel duty measure in PolicyEngine's [Autumn Budget 2026 dashboard](https://policyengine.org/uk/autumn-budget-2026). The saving is linear in litres, so the chart plots its value every 100 litres, computed from the rules and checked against PolicyEngine UK at each point.
+PolicyEngine UK holds spending on fuel fixed and does not pass a duty change into VAT, so we add 20% of the duty change for the VAT on the pump price. In those simulations, the VAT step lowers the household's `vat` by that amount, so the change flows through `vat_change` into `household_net_income`, as the dashboard's VAT modifier does. We use the rates, dates and VAT treatment of the fuel duty measure in PolicyEngine's [Autumn Budget 2026 dashboard](https://policyengine.org/uk/autumn-budget-2026). The saving is linear in litres, so the chart plots its value every 100 litres; we compute each point from the rules and check it against PolicyEngine UK.
 
 The population results come from a run of the dashboard's measure on PolicyEngine's certified UK household data. We reproduced them in a separate run with the same package, data and forecast: the cost is £301 million in 2026-27 and £521 million in 2027-28, of which VAT is 17%, and the average gain is £10 and £18 a household.