AIBU that working people should be rewarded in the Budget?

It's not just the official "unemployed" who aren't working, or not working as much as they could! Though, it would help if there were fewer unemployed people claiming benefits rather than contributing!

What about the official much higher number of "economically inactive"??

It's more about people who've retired early, but could still work, or work part time but could work more hours, or in basic/low paid jobs who could take better jobs/promotions, etc. They need to be incentivised to actually work!

Not read the full thread but wasn't it in the conservative manifesto that they would raised the income tax threshold to the equivalent of 37.5hrs on minimum wage as no one on minimum wage should be paying tax...... distinctly recall that promise that, like all the other manifesto promises, has just been silently scrapped.

Ah there is your error, SMEs stands for ‘small and medium sized enterprises’ you have done your calculation for “small businesses employ 61%” using SME numbers which include medium sized businesses.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/936843/employment-by-smes-in-uk/

“We need to stop the disincentives and discouragements of people able to work, and able to work more, and to do that we have to "make work pay", and need a tax/benefits system that means people starting to work, or starting to work longer hours, take promotions, etc., get to keep more of their wages rather than these stupid and damaging cliff edges and stupidly high marginal rates.

Getting more people into work, and more people working, will massively benefit the country…”

I really don’t think that 3% unemployed rate, as in if we magically find an extra 1.2 million jobs for them all will be enough to turn the economy and country round. It’s not like the unemployed are usually hedge fund managers on £2m a year and paying £250k/yr in tax. The lack of PAYE tax from 1.2m unemployed is what? A loss of tax revenue of around £4.2m in income tax per year? (Assuming generously that each unemployed worker gets a £30k/yr job)

It’s a drop. Our government spent twice that swapping pictures of the late queen for good old King Charlie.

I was going to write a long response, then I saw who the OP was. Now I’m not going to bother.

I'd quite like to see family carers acknowledged in the budget, as having given up a decently paying job to be one, 24/7, well under £100 pw doesn't really cut it. I get my Class A NI contributions paid but had my years in a long time ago without them.

We are OK, we manage but there are many in this situation who are really struggling.

We also need to tackle the black economy, i.e. undeclared earnings, business doing "vat free for cash", sale of duty free booze and fags, profits from drug dealing and prostitution, as well as benefit fraud which often goes hand in hand with black economy earnings.

I agree.

Govt official statistics confirm 61% is the correct figure!

• "total employment in SMEs increased from 16.4 million at the start of 2022 to 16.7 million at the start of 2023, an increase of 1.7%"

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/business-population-estimates-2023/business-population-estimates-for-the-uk-and-regions-2023-statistical-release

There is a really really simple way to 'make work pay' tax income less and tax unearned capital and assets more.
However, no one wealthy asset holders seems that keen on taxing assets and capital least of all you OP (inheritance tax would do just that). There were several years (albeit a while ago now) where my property out earned me. That's some kind of crazy. And if I'd sold....no tax on what it had earned, not a penny. Of course it's only available if I cash it in (and I need somewhere to live). But if I'd been someone from a family with assets I might have bought a second property and if that had earned loads I still wouldn't have been taxed any where near what I was being taxed on my income. Same with other assets. So lucky people who have had access to capital have hugely increased their wealth and assets in the last 15 years and have paid minimal tax on all those lovely earnings....

You’re wrong about IHT. I’m a homeowner, my parents are homeowners and as an only child I’d benefit significantly from inheriting their house but personally I’m in favour of a 100% inheritance tax. Inherited wealth is one of the biggest drivers of inequality. It should all go back into creating affordable social housing stock that’s accessible to everyone, so nobody needs to rely on inheritance to have a secure home. I wouldn’t trust the current government not to misuse it but theoretically I’d absolutely choose the betterment of society for people worse off than me over a personal windfall. I’ll probably be leaving all my assets to charity.

Small businesses employ 4.35 million workers. Out of the total 32.86 million workers in the U.K. , as of the second quarter of 2023, there were approximately 27 million people working in the private sector of the United Kingdom, which was around 82.1 percent of the UK workforce.

4.35 million out of 27 million privately employed workers is 16%, not 61%.

Small businesses are usually exempted from a lot of regulations that drive up the costs of doing business. A small business has an annual turnover between £2m and £10m per year.

Perhaps there should be a progressive tax system for businesses instead of the flat rate taxes we do have? So small businesses pay lower taxes than medium or large businesses?

I doubt very much a small business would decide to “employ no one” because of a 1p on the £ increase in tax.

I think it's aimed more at people who want "someone else" to pay more tax, never themselves!!

I don't think the country can afford any tax decreases at all, for anyone, but IF taxes have to be increased, I think it's time that workers were ring fence protected and taxes increased on those with incomes other than from wages under PAYE, i.e. on pensions, dividends, interest, capital gains, etc - those people who've largely been insulated from the tax rises of the last 2 or 3 decades with have generally hit workers (especially "middle" workers) the hardest. So my vote would be either extend NIC to ALL income or scrap it and increase income tax/capital gains tax rates instead.

We need to stop the disincentives and discouragements of people able to work, and able to work more, and to do that we have to "make work pay", and need a tax/benefits system that means people starting to work, or starting to work longer hours, take promotions, etc., get to keep more of their wages rather than these stupid and damaging cliff edges and stupidly high marginal rates.

Getting more people into work, and more people working, will massively benefit the country far more than a bit of a tax refund for Auntie Mabel on her gold plated public sector pension or Giles the hedgefund manager! Not only does more people working and earning more circulate more money throughout the economy, it also helps fill all the areas where staff shortages are causing real problems.

Who are “people like these”? The ones willing to pay more tax for decent public services?

Perhaps you can donate a kidney too while you are at it. After all no amount of other people’s money is ever enough for people like these

Do HMRC forcibly return the additional tax you try and pay every year?

Look at Labour, if mem serves me well, when i was at school, they had a upper tax rate of 88% and a lot of the people that were paying towards ruing the country via their taxes f'd off out of the country and it went belly up
It doesn’t.

FM's are wishing for a Labour gov and ignorant of the facts about the 88% tax they put on those in good jobs, careers and most of those epople started leaving England and Labour left the country belly up.

That simply isn’t true. The highest rate of tax under Thatcher was more than at any time under the last Labour government. Why don’t you check your facts?

In the 1970s, the highest rate of income tax on earned income was 83 per cent. Margaret Thatcher’s government reduced it to 60 per cent in 1980 and 40 per cent in 1989 (equal to the higher rate). From 1989 to 2010, the highest rate of income tax remained at 40 per cent and this was not a live political issue.

But the marked rise in income inequality in recent decades together with the deterioration of the public finances after the financial crisis led the Labour government to raise the top rate to 50 per cent (the ‘additional rate’) for those reporting taxable income in excess of £150,000 per annum, taking effect in April 2010 – this affected slightly under 1 per cent of taxpayers.

However, yes I think income tax should be lowered by both by the threshold being increased by inflation over the years it has been static, and the basic rate reduced. However the rate for the higher paid should be increased

I'm paying 60% tax on part of my income. How much more exactly would you like me to pay? How about if I hand over 100% of my salary would that be enough for you? Or perhaps it wouldn't and you'd like to take my house and pension off me too?

We need a large inheritance tax and for people to continue to have to sell their properties to fund residential care. We also need large taxes on second homes and landlords.
We also need to get to grip with taxing internet businesses.
And we need to tackle corporate fraud which is very common. The civil service department that did this previously was cut massively. Look at current fraud with visas for sale. Pretty widespread and not even the most basic checks are happening.