Absolutely rinsed in this budget - almost £1k a year worse off.

100%. DH is a consultant doing NHS and private work. About 7 years ago, every consultant got two brand new ipads in the course of a year because the NHS hospital was in surplus and didn’t want to lose the budget. Meanwhile, the “main” hospital up the road is permanently in special measures with grannies on trollers 24/7. 🤷‍♀️ Piss-ups and breweries spring to mind!

We also worked out that DH would need a pension pot of >£2.5 million to obtain the same annuity as he will receive from the NHS pension scheme. Very nice for us, you may think, but if we multiply that by every senior medic in the land (not to mention NHS management and GP’s - who aren’t exactly winning patient satisfaction awards rn) and you get a flavour of why the UK is so very turbofucked, and why Reeves is taxing the bejesus out of anyone who bothers to drag themselves out of bed in the morning.

To be fair, the amount of public money wasted on PFIs is sickening. My DS works in a school, and just a simple job like moving a plug socket can cost thousands, and they’re forced to pay it.

We all thought PFIs were great 30 years ago when they were building all these state-of-the-art hospitals, schools and public buildings on tick, but it was like financing our public services with a Wonga loan and now we’re stuck with them.

I often wonder what would the legal implications be if the government decided to just stop paying, and compulsory purchased them all back?

Quite. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence should be able to grasp that doors in a hospital setting can't just be some MDF with a hinge attached

What did they pay for the doors? Doors are a bloody nightmare on healthcare projects, they are expensive, often have automotive aspects that need to be built in, fire rated and properly certified which often means all ironmongery needs to be fitted by the manufacture and the ironmongery used has to have been tested with the door to confirm compliance. I can't think of a single health care project I've worked on where the doors haven't been on the critical path because of the long lead times.

I remember seeing on X the other way how much the NHS wasted on replacing some doors.

This shows you don't understand economics or business. I'm all of tackling actual evasion and avoidance. But I actually think billionaires can and should exist if they play by the rules. I used Google today - 2 billionaires. I have a MacBook - another billionaire. My work laptop is a Windows one - I thank Bill Gates another billionaires.

If they liquidated all their shares in their company the market and people's investment portfolios would tank, meaning that more people would be in poverty.

Lol

Subsiding business or people who can't garnish a wage good enough to live off and/or need to budget better?

Also I've had a look at DWP statistics most aren't even working full time. Only 1/7 work FT, most work 21 hours a week.

Sorry that should say “never earned another penny”. It won’t let me edit it.

Oh come off it. Last year our household paid well into 6 figures of various taxes, this year it will be even more. There are no GP appointments, my relative is left for many hours needing emergency care and even twenty years ago, I had a delayed NHS diagnosis that was life-changing - and the only “excuse” was ‘there’s no money’. Meanwhile the public sector unfunded pensions liability (not even on the UK’s books) is trillions, and growing.

We are just utterly shit at state services in the UK. I don’t know why, but I’m certainly not willing to see even less of the money earned by me confiscated for some mythical greater good, when what actually happens is that tax pays off a lot of debt interest, the public sector gets a whopping pay rise and productivity goes down yet again.

I also think Reeves position is untenable (and Starmer’s, by extension), but I’m afraid for what incompetent lunatic will be wheeled out of the sixth form common room next.

We were told that Sunak should be admired for his wealth. I was just pointing out that a person shouldn’t be worthy of admiration just by virtue of being rich. They could be a psychopath who has been gifted a fortune. Why is that to be admired?

There are much more admirable qualities a person can have - compassion, selflessness, humility, curiousness, generosity, kindness, warmth… I’m very comfortable myself but when they’re putting me in the ground it isn’t my bank balance that I hope I’ll be remembered fondly for.

I’d have more admiration for someone from a humble background who built a fortune. In fact I’d have as much admiration for a struggling nurse/teacher/etc who was penniless. It is very easy to make money when you’re already rich.

I believe that any billionaire is obscenely wealthy. Even if they liquidated all their assets today and never spent another penny, they’d have hundreds of millions of pounds to spend every year for the rest of their lives. They have more than they could ever begin to spend in their lifetime.

Meanwhile half the population of earth are living on less than £5 a day. So yes, I think it is grossly obscene to hoard more money than you could ever dream of spending while humans are starving.

And this affects you how? This is life I’m afraid some people are born into wealth and most of us aren’t.

None of them should be working. We really shouldn’t be subsidising businesses who don’t pay their employees enough to live on.

What is so obscene about his wife's family being wealthy from running a successful technology company? Why is it so bad that his parents did well for themselves? Then he himself went out and did a good career.

60% aren't working then?

The point was that someone said Sunak should be admired for his financial success. He hardly pulled himself up by his bootstraps out of the gutter. He was born into wealth and married into obscene wealth. I’m not sure why that is admirable rather than lucky.

You are the haves with a joint income of £140K and chose to buy a band F house and you chose private schools.

I’m a single parent earning £65K with a band C house but I am still what I would consider lucky and with a decent income and don’t have to worry about how on earth I’m going to feed my kids, unlike the parents who have to claim benefits. 40% of Universal Credit claimants are working.

If I have to pay more tax so that children living in poverty are helped by removing the two child benefit cap then so be it. If public services finally get more funding then so be it.

YABU.

So OP is right after all.

She is paying more tax because Rachel Reeves lied to parliament and the country. I guess lying on her CV was just a little taste for what we get with her incompetence.

Wouldn't it be better for higher taxes so that your elderly relative and disabled child had better support?

And?

I absolutely agree with this. Some of the comments on here are awful and seem to be rooted in nothing more than envy. The higher paid are the ones who contribute more and if they weren’t around there wouldn’t be a welfare system or one that is severely stripped down. All life’s ills seems to be placed at the foot of the taxpayer when in fact they are the ones who come to the rescue when the welfare state is needed.

Why? Aren’t we supposed to be in it all together?

I meant that we all tend to live in accordance with our means. If I’d stayed in my 2-bed flat that I purchased at 25, when earning a third of my current salary, I’d probably “feel” wealthier. Instead, I’m in a 4-bed with a mortgage, supporting an older relative with very limited means, and have to fund basic care and services from my net salary because the NHS and LA are happy to neglect my disabled child.

Broad shoulders or not, there is plenty of rank unfairness in the tax system - not least the 62% marginal rate that I mentioned.

There really is some absolute baloney being bandied about on here, not sure if it’s genuine or agitators. The fact remains she’s tinkered at the edges with allowances and loopholes most of which affect those comfortably enough off to be saving an awful lot every year or salary sacrificing ( I certainly couldn’t do that and earn pretty well) , not put bands up , but this was already known and neither did the Tory’s, and nope they haven’t put actual income tax up - personally I would have done and I maybe would have upped the middle tier by £5k - if anything it was a rather dull and neutral budget - it’s like last year they doubled employers allowance for NI , so anyone employing 2 or 3 people either doesn’t pay it or pays very little , ( I know because it affected me) did I see a positive thing like that mentioned anywhere ‘nah’ !! They are taking measures to get fuel bills down -is this mentioned? Nah -

im a Lib Dem voter but the amount of doom and gloom posted I feel is from people who aren’t exactly on the breadline