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The Budget
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
Highlights:
2p off basic rate of income tax
10p starter rate abolished
2p cut in corporation tax
Gas guzzling car duty up to £300 this year and £400 next
Beer and cider up 1p, wine 5p, spirits duty frozen
11p on cigarettes
2p petrol increase frozen for six months
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6472999.stm
Mmm... it's all very well to cut the basic rate but if the starter rate is abolished most poorly paid people are going to be worse off aren't they?
I see that he's cut corporation tax as well. A sweetener to business leaders from the soon-to-be new PM? :chin:
Quite pleased about the increased car duty for gas guzzlers though
2p off basic rate of income tax
10p starter rate abolished
2p cut in corporation tax
Gas guzzling car duty up to £300 this year and £400 next
Beer and cider up 1p, wine 5p, spirits duty frozen
11p on cigarettes
2p petrol increase frozen for six months
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6472999.stm
Mmm... it's all very well to cut the basic rate but if the starter rate is abolished most poorly paid people are going to be worse off aren't they?
I see that he's cut corporation tax as well. A sweetener to business leaders from the soon-to-be new PM? :chin:
Quite pleased about the increased car duty for gas guzzlers though
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Comments
Once again hammer the drinkers and smokers.
:thumb:
As for whether this is good or bad for low earners, its far too early to say, but I suspect the removal of the 10p rate isnt a good thing.
:yes:
All increasing the duty on ciggies does is increase smuggling.
The removal of the 10p tax rate is just a way of clawing back the money saved by the reduction of the 22% tax rate to 20%. It just punishes those on low salaries.
:thumb:
11p on cigarettes is a disgrace. Britain treats smokers like shit and smokers continue to pay more and more to the government. Luckily I'm not a particularly heavy smoker so being in Europe a few times a year is enough for me to stock up so I don't have to buy smokes in Britain.
Meh tbh I'm so fed up of Britain. Whatever Brown does Britain will remain an expensive country to live in; we have high taxes and a high cost of living. Meh, as soon as I'm out of uni I'll go to Berlin. Germany, esp Berlin is cheaper than Britain and there's a higher standard of living. But, don't tell anyone else, most Brits don't know how great Germany is - and frankly I hope it stays that way.
Just take care what you question or deny.;)
Currently, the personal allowance before tax kicks in is £5,035. The next £2,150 is then 10%. See here.
With this 10% now abolished - and tax kicking in at 20% straight away after the personal allowance, surely part time workers on low earnings are going to be hit very hard. (Which does not seem fair at all).
It would have been fairer to leave the basic rate of income tax and increase the tax-free personal allowance. Oh and most of all it would have made sense to merge NI into income tax.
That would have been a better idea, but Im sure Gordon Brown is more concerned with being seen as a 'tax cutting chancelor'
2p off income tax makes for better headlines
Plus of course he is piddling with NI too, so higher earners will pay more of this, but this is NI, its not income tax, its just a tax on income.
Not just part-time workers.
In fact, based purely on the 10% being abolished and the 22% being cut to 20%, tou have to be earning more than £17,935 a year to be directly better off from those two changes......
This budget reinforces my disliking of Brown. Brown is hoping people will be stupid enough to forget every other tax rise and accept this tax 'cut.' (And this basically seems like a tax cut for those in the middle and a tax rise for those at the bottom).
I'll be at uni next year so maybe only doing a bit of part time work so it won't have much effect on me. Don't have a car either so I'm okay there. And I try not to buy cigs in Britain. Increase on beer is a pain though. Nice to see Brown is looking out for Scotland's whisky industry though, has he ever increased duty on spirits? Smokers and beer drinkers get screwed over every year.
I know. Hasn't the 40% threshold gone up to £40k-odd from about £35k too?
Oh, and I reckon you're a bit paranoid about the whisky. Everyone drinks JD anyway.
Takes the piss really, and just a move to win the votes of the tree-huggers.
Yeah, because we families have so much more disposable income...
Incidentally, I'm about £100 better of because of the changes he's announced. Have a feeling that the cost of nappies will more than cover that...
Maybe but doesn't really change the fact that every budget beer and smokes go up but spirits are never touched. Brown looks out for Scotland shocker I suppose.
So what? People shouldn't be punished for not having kids.
Can't you really think why the use of such vehicles should be discouraged?
It's certainly to win the environmental vote, and jump on the anti-4x4 bandwagon. And I think that the problem isn't people owning 4x4's, it's people unnecessarily owning 4x4's (let's face it, there is absolutely no reason for the average family to drive a 4x4 instead of an estate car or MPV). I think that there should be a reduction for anyone using a 4x4 for work reasons, or perhaps easier to impliment, for people who live in more rural areas. But otherwise, unless you're arguing that all cars should pay the same amount of road tax, I don't see how you can complain that the cars that are a bigger cause of every problem on the roads today, are charged more in road tax. And this is comng from a guy who just forked out £175 to tax his car for another year.
That was my plan, too! I love Germany, though Hamburg's where it's at :thumb:
The ciggies increase is [again] a disgrace. I don't even smoke anymore and I'm outraged about it. Pfft.
But my previous car WASN'T a 4x4. It would do over 30mpg on a run and was bought as I was able to finally get something I'd aspired to. The tax was already £190/year, which, to my mind, is enough already.
True, I am not a fan of 4x4s, but owning a 'sports' car, to me, is a different proposition. You drive them because of the way they drive. They're a pleasure! With the 4x4 issue, they are becoming more and more removed from the original purpose of these vehicles.
I'm not saying that 4x4s should be banned etc etc instead of putting the tax onto the consumer, why not change the rate of tax that the manufacturers have to pay on the sale of each of these vehicles.
It just boils my piss that somebody who is a car enthusiast (and I honestly can't see how most people driving a 4x4 could be classed under this) should have to pay more for the privilage when they already are!
Nearly 80% of the cost of every packet of cigarettes is tax.
Given that cigarettes in Britain are already absurdly expensive compared to the rest of the EU further increases in tax just widen the gap. Expect more people to make an effort to stock up abroad. Expect more people buying loads of cigarettes abroad trying to sell them in Britain.
Hamburg seems pretty cool, we only had a day there so didn't see much...want to go again though. Stayed in a pretty cool hostel there though called instant sleep I think. But, for me, Berlin will always be where it's at. I've heard plenty of Germans (mainly from Bavaria) slag off Berlin but they're wrong. Although, Munich is pretty cool too, the beerhalls are fun but I don't think I'd want to live there, cool place to visit though.
and guess what, smoking (it seems at least from when I have been to the continent) is much more common in Europe.
If taxing them makes Britain a nicer place then it is a good thing.....
And of course they should be taxed, and taxed highly. But the current level of tax just gifts a trade worth 10's of millions of pounds to criminals.
That doesn't make any sense.
The primary purpose of taxing fags etc is to limit their use, and this appears to be successful.
Criminals getting some business is irrelevant. If that was what we were mainly worried about we would hand them out free........