AIBU that working people should be rewarded in the Budget?

Was it? Well the Tories were the senior party there and didn't have to agree to it, so I don't think that'll do them any good here!

How is a cut in Capital Gains Tax a victory for workers? CGT is a tax on unearned income.

It was actually libdems who forced it through as part of the horse trading in the coalition!

You do know that most people don't pay tax on their pension contributions. Therefore, if their pension gives them above the tax threshold (most people), then they pay tax on it.
I do get fed up of the 'hard working pensioners' and 'hard working families' tropes. Most people work hard, no matter their situation. I am a single person, earning (just) into the 40% tax bracket. Y'know, it would be nice to get something back - but if the payoff is helping people out of poverty, I can live with that.

Stuff the planet - eh? Fuel duty has been falling in real terms for more than a decade, otherwise it should be 69.48p/litre by now. If he spent that money on public transport it might actually function.

On the plus side, it looks like merging NI with Income Tax is an aspiration, even if he hasn't committed to do it this time. Hopefully the next government will take that up, should help close a few loopholes - income is income.

Forget about jointly assessing couples, what about just counting the children in their parent's tax assessment then? Joint assessment of couples is only of benefit if one of the couple is on a lower rate than the other. Dependant children will always be on a lower rate because they are very unlikely to even use their whole personal allowance.

And we all know why that is, lol.

Why is it? Because I haven’t got a fucking clue.

I've actually come across a few people who weren't parents when it was changed in 2013, didn't notice at the time and once affected, hadn't clocked that it was the Tories who did it. But broadly agree, probably the majority of people impacted know it was their doing. Of course the electorate are less willing to give credit for improving a bad policy when it was you who caused the issue in the first place.

Well yeah, we do. In 2019 it was the cult of Brexit that did it and that has gone so well.

You still don't know what Labour will do because no GE has been called, so no manifesto.

As for your opinion - I know what that's worth 😂.

Very clever. For too long now people have expected those earning a wage in very normal
jobs to fund everyone else. The very notion that they should be grateful for earning 50k.

Dont get me wrong - I won’t vote Tory. Many will now though. These are huge swing votes. Many are now being impacted by this and being told to suck it up and pay more won’t wash. It’s why Labour has gone quiet on the 80k 45% band. Working people in professional careers are fed up. Will they win - no. Will it make things less easy for Labour - yes.

You cannot keep ignoring the issues surrounding the plight of working tax payers being penalised and every turn and expect the status quo to remain.

It was a shitty policy and people are not stupid. They will take money but not change their vote. Labour will keep it. All those people who have been doing self assessment for years won't suddenly eat mind soap and forget what happened

I don't think the newly announced changes will be a vote winner for the Tories, or not much of one. Because they're beyond help at this point and there's nothing they could really do in a Budget to avert their upcoming rout.

But you're right about the current model being ridiculous, and so I reckon Labour will have to keep the CB 60-80k sliding scale, at minimum, when they get in. It would be politically and practically a bad idea to revert back to the current, stupid system. Whether the consultation about moving to household income ever happens and gets actioned is another thing again.

Well, you don't know that, since they haven't been in government for 14 years...

Who are "the idiots at the pumps"?

This budget is dreadful and does nothing for public services.

How dare Hunt talk about supporting the NHS.

No it’s not. It’s a pathetic attempt to buy votes from gullible people who don’t care about public services.

They would be worse off in an emotional sense though (and maybe even physically if it’s a physically abusive relationship) as they’d have to try and justify to the abuser why they were not taking the option. Last time labour were in they tried paying tax credits through the tax system by giving extra allowance against tax rather than paying out as a benefit. The idea makes sense on paper as why tax someone and pay them benefits you may as well tax them less. I’m sure it worked fine in a loving family home but the fact it had to be changed after only a few years and the money paid as a benefit to the primary carer instead showed that many homes don’t work like that

Perhaps if you’d read the post properly you’d have seen that I did adjust for inflation, and in real terms the personal allowance is much higher than it was then :)

In terms of wage growth, the data’s out there if you google it. But broadly, inflation exceeded wage growth in the 3 years to 2013, wages growth exceeded inflation for the 8 years to 2021, and then fell behind in 2022, before overtaking it in 2023. So on average over the period I suspect the two have tracked reasonably closely.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1272447/uk-wage-growth-vs-inflation/

I think sorting out the child benefit system would be a massive vote winner for whichever party does it. It's such a ridiculous way of doing things and it creates such massive unfairness.

But "household" income is already required to be disclosed when claiming certain benefits, so it's not really that much different if it was extended to tax. In fact, the £50k child benefit cliff edge tax already works on the higher earner in the household, so there's already a step towards the tax system needing to know the income of both partners.

As a pp said, recognition of women’s financial autonomy took a long, hard won battle. It’s unbelievable that people think it’s a desirable thing to go backwards.

Well in that case the abused/ abusive partner wouldn't take the option of joining their incomes. Abused women would be no worse off than they are now, people not in abusive relationships and trying to support a family of four on a single income would have that acknowledged in their tax code.