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Labour is to ask the government's spending watchdog to scrutinise the pledges in its 2015 election manifesto to make sure the "sums add up".
Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls is anxious to demonstrate Labour's "iron discipline" on the economy to voters.
He has written to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) - set up in 2010 by Chancellor George Osborne - to ask if it will review his costings.
The OBR has said it could not do the job under its current remit.
But Labour sources say they are hoping to change the organisation's remit so that it can audit Labour's spending commitments without comparing them to government policies, something that would risk politicising the organisation.
In other Labour conference developments:
- Mr Miliband announced plans to make large companies train a new apprentice for each skilled worker they hire from outside the EU
- Shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg said Labour will overturn any decision to scrap AS levels
- Shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne urged the government to sack Atos - the firm which carries out "fitness for work tests" on disabled people - over its "disgraceful" performance and failure to meet people's needs
- Shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh says Labour would force water companies to offer lower prices to poorer families
- Labour would also take action to prevent food being dumped in landfills, forcing local authorities and hospitals to recycle food waste
- Mary Creagh would also force supermarkets to include clearer labelling of buy-one-get-one-free offers, giving customers the price per unit
In a speech to Labour activists at the party's annual conference in Brighton, Mr Balls will say he needs to be "straight" with the country about the tough choices the party would have to take in office.
"In tough times it's even more important that all our policies and commitments are properly costed and funded.
"The British people rightly want to know that the sums add up," he will say.
'Difficult choices'
He will add: "This is the first time a shadow chancellor - the first time any political party in Britain - has ever said it wants this kind of independent audit. A radical change from what's gone before, but the right thing to do to help restore trust in politics."
He will say Labour would not be able to reverse all of the coalition's spending cuts - but would aim to cut the deficit in a "fairer" way.
"We will have to govern with less money around. The next Labour government will have to make cuts too. Because while jobs and growth are vital to getting the deficit down - something this government has never understood - they cannot magic the whole deficit away at a stroke.
"And delivering our Labour goals will be harder than at any time in living memory.
"If we get people back to work and strengthen our economy, cut out waste and focus relentlessly on our priorities, and make sure difficult choices are not ducked, but are rooted in our values, in fairness and in common sense."
Commenting on Mr Balls' proposals, Robert Chote, chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility, said: "It is for Parliament to decide what the remit of the OBR should be and it is highly desirable that there should be a cross-party consensus on that.
"If Parliament did want us to undertake this role, then there would be a number of practical issues to address.
"Among them, we would need to ensure that we had adequate internal resources to do the job, as well as guaranteed access to the necessary data and analytical expertise within Whitehall, as we have when scrutinising the government's policies."
'Stunt'
The planned announcement was dismissed as a "stunt" by the Conservatives and an attempt to politicise the OBR, which is meant to be independent.
It comes as Labour leader Ed Miliband has described claims in a dossier published by the Conservatives, that there is a £27.9bn "black hole" in Labour's spending plans, as "nonsense".
An analysis of Treasury data released by the Tories claims Labour promises would require more than £1,000 extra borrowing per household in 2015.
The Tory analysis was put together using written questions in parliament and Freedom of Information requests.
The spending commitments listed included the cancelling of reductions to legal aid, scrapping the housing benefit changes, introducing a jobs guarantee and cutting VAT back to 17.5%. Revenue-raising commitments from new taxes and savings were subtracted from the spending commitments to reach the £27.9bn figure.
But Mr Miliband insisted Labour's plans were "clearly costed" and the party would not increase borrowing to fund "day-to-day" spending if he won the 2015 election.
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