| THURSDAY 23rd APRIL 22.30 GMT - BBC TWO PRESENTED BY GAVIN ESLER Hello, It was a French statesman who said that the art of taxation was rather like the art of plucking a live goose. The important thing is to get the largest amount of feathers with the smallest amount of hissing. Is that what Gordon Brown will achieve with his new 50% tax band for the relatively well off? Or - when those clever folk known as accountants start doing the sums and work out the total deductions are, in fact, more like 60% - will we really be seeing a brain drain from Britain? We'll give you the Newsnight guide to tax avoidance. And we'll be number crunching the Institute of Fiscal Studies figures that show in real terms there will be a cut in total spending of 0.1% per year. So how far is yesterday's budget a return not just to the higher taxes of the past but also to the hair-shirt economics of the 1960s and 1970s? We'll be speaking to some veterans from that era and asking them what we should be cutting. Michael Crick has a good story on MPs expenses which he'll reveal on the programme. And Mihir Bose returns to the city of his childhood, Mumbai, where he meets -among many colourful characters - the actor who played the quiz-master in the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire. Join us at 10.30pm on BBC Two. Missed Newsnight? Click here to watch online Newsnight Blogs Join the debate here | 
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