The Chancellor clobbered households with £40billion of tax rises last year, and now needs up to £30billion more to keep her plans afloat. But her tax raids are about more than balancing the books. They’re about ideology.

Labour believes in taxing more and spending more, and Reeves has proved it by handing the next Budget to one of the most zealous tax-raisers in the country.

His name is Torsten Bell and I’ve warned you about him before. Last September, I listed all the taxes he wanted to increase. It was a very long list.

In January I wrote that Bell had never seen a tax he doesn’t want to hike. I added: If you thought Reeves was bad, he’s be even worse.

Bell is said to be clever, although he’s also been called obtuse.

He was parachuted into a safe Labour seat at the general election, then quickly appointed Minister for Pensions. When Reeves goes, he’s first in line to replace her as Chancellor.

This follows almost a decade running the left-wing Resolution Foundation, a think tank with just one idea: dreaming up new ways of taxing the public.

Here’s a flavour of his handiwork.

On his watch, the Resolution Foundation called for unused pensions to be taxed on death and long-standing reliefs for farms and family businesses to be abolished.

Sound familiar? Reeves has already adopted both, showing how much sway Bell has.

Next on his hit list is inheritance tax (IHT). He wants the £175,000 main residence IHT nil-rate band scrapped, wiping out £350,000 of family protection at a stroke.

The basic £325,000 nil-rate band would be slashed to £125,000, with all lifetime gifts above £3,000 a year dragged into the IHT net.

Even more of what you build up in your lifetime would end up with the state, for clever types like Bell to spend.

On capital gains tax (CGT), he pushed for rates of 37% on shares and 53% on property, plus a “double death tax”, charging both CGT and IHT on estates.

Landlords would pay National Insurance (NI) on rental income, the self-employed would pay more NI too, and the basic dividend tax rate would leap from 8.75% to 20%.

Inevitably, our pensions will be fair game. Bell would cut the maximum 25% tax-free cash allowance to £100,000, or possibly even just £40,000.

Drivers wouldn’t escape, with fuel duty cuts reversed then accelerated every year. Bell has also dismissed the state pension triple lock as “silly”. He wants it scrapped.

Fresh-faced Bell may appear affable, but he’s detached from ordinary life. I bet he gets on famously with Ed Miliband.

Anybody can draw up a hit list of taxes they’d like to hike. But they also need to consider the damage done by endless raids on growth, investment and incentive.

People need a reason to work hard, build wealth and pass it on. That reality is invisible to Bell.

After years running the Resolution Foundation, he’s now been handed an even more dangerous toy: the nation’s finances.

Labour bangs on about “working people” but it’s stuffed with over-educated policy wonks who’ve never done a real day’s work and view the public as a revenue source.

I get why Reeves wanted somebody else to write her Budget, given the hash she made of her first. But her choice is frightening.

This Budget was already grim. With Bell pulling the strings, it just got worse. And heaven help the triple lock.