Am I the only one that thinks that the budget is good?!

@LemaxObsessive how come if she’s under the personal tax allowance ? And that age with that low a private pension she would be - under personal allowance and why isn’t she entitled to pension credit? Money stashed away possibly that she hasn’t mentioned earning interest ? Those figures just don’t add up - sorry to sound harsh but that doesn’t sound right at all - I’m a bit cynical these days because over on the elderly parents board there are a load of people whose parents plead poverty and often turns out they have significant sums stashed but just don’t want to use it - not saying that’s the case but if she hadn’t then I would definitely look at why she needs to pay tax at all

ah i see others have said as much

I think it’s weighing up what you get on both sides.
So say you are £5k over threshold for higher rate tax and you put that money into a pension. Even with the changes in the recent budget £4940 would go into your pension pot. If you take the money you get £2,900 now so you might prefer foregoing it now to save more for retirement.

Alternatively you could take 5 weeks of summer holidays as unpaid leave to bring you below £50k. Again you forego £2,900 now but you get time with your kids and can maybe do a project you’d otherwise have paid someone else to do. If you have 2 kids half that money you don’t earn could easily have gone on clubs. If you also managed something like painting/decorating a decent sized room then very quickly you’d be no worse off financially than if you’d gone to work and you’ll have had a 5 week break.

Even with no kids and no jobs to do if work allows then it might be taking time off at a cheap time of year for holidays allows you to have a nicer life overall. That recuperation time might be more valuable than the money.

A lot of this would hold true regardless of the tax rate but I think knowing you are about to jump into a higher band prompts people to think about it

This is the reason I consider this to be an ill-thought out budget. It’s supposed to address cost of living but dragging people at the lower end of the income bracket is placing people into poverty.

I've been looking more around it, and the birth rates were never impacted by them limiting the amount you could claim for. So there would unlikely be a big jump then anyway.

I agree the care sector should be a National Care Service, because profit has no place in care; but even if the private care homes for profit were put back under local authorities tomorrow, they still wouldn’t be funded for increases in careworkers’ NMW, by central government. The money would have to be found by cutting non-statutory services or increasing council tax.

DD lives in a care home, run by a charity. There are no self funders. The last budget increased their staff costs by about £1 million. I know the total number of staff is 1,000 but I am not sure how many are careworkers on the NMW, but say it’s 600

600 x 50p per hour x 40 hours per week x 52 weeks of the year= £624,000 pa increase in costs.

Then, there will be other costs dependent on pay, such as employers’ pension contributions and national insurance? As pp have said, team leaders/house managers on slightly more than the careworkers won’t be happy to see their staff, earning the same as them. They will expect to be paid a bit more, to maintain the differential for more responsibilities.

Local authorities and ICBs are unlikely ime, to agree to the necessary uplift in fees.

Yes I was kind of intending to make that point. Like I said to meet the cost of DB some years my employer has had to put 50% of my salary in as their contribution. The amounts that go in for DB pensions, particularly years with large pay rises are huge.

PPs mother won't be on new state pension as she reached pension age before it came in. She will be on the old state pension and depending on whether she was ever contacted out could be receiving up to £386 a week in state pension payments.
Theold pension basic is £176 a week and the max SERPs is around £222 a week

We dont know what the OPs mothers state pension is as she won't be on the New State Pension she will be on the old. Depending on her circumstances and whether she was ever contracted out during her working life she could be receiving up to around £386 per week.

@RareJoker Assume you are working? Does what you bring in have an impact on this benefits figure?

Whilst not entitled to it, LA’s can and do pay the equivalent of fostering allowances and associated benefits in these situations. It’s cheaper than what the LA’s would have to pay for a foster or care placement. The problem is most people don’t get proper legal advice when going through the process. 😓 What I don’t agree with is when you have some family members who request allowances for things like birthday and Christmas presents because they’re taking on relatives kids.

Take comfort from the fact these backbenchers will most likely lose their seats anyway and even if they don’t they’ll be in opposition.

Could not agree more. But feels like a minority view - on the threads here, at least.

I agree too.

I wish Labour would be braver in taxing extreme wealth and also with second homes and landlords (I am one myself) especially landlords that have multiple properties

They are in a position to do this with the majority they have

Its disappointing that they are not

I think you're going to get your wish. Reading these threads last night and today, I think there's a very good chance Reform will get in. It makes me really sad, and worried for my kids' future.

It always comes down to "give all your money away, then" when people have run out of legitimate arguments. I am not a billionaire, so no amount of charitable giving on my part alone will make a significant impact. Philanthropy is not the solution - it's basically what they rely on in the US, and look how that's going. People who can afford to be squeezed a bit more need to be squeezed a bit more. And those living in £2m+ houses definitely fall into that category.

It's going to lift many children out of poverty.

The 2 child limit was either badly thought out or deliberately cruel.

On of my neighbours 'took on' three of her grand children as their mother wasn't fit to be a mother. Her other daughter took on another three, all primary aged, she was 19 when she was awarded custody.

Relatives who foster are not entitled to the fostering allowance.

Very little I agreed with or can get on board with tbh. And not simply because it negatively impacts me - my concerns are more broadly that there was zero policy in there to trigger and encourage the economic growth that Labour spouted continuously pre-election. Nothing. We desperately need growth in the UK and they've now delivered 2 budgets that dampen growth significantly.

NMW - whilst it sounds great on paper, and I want everyone to be paid a fair wage, the reality is less young people in work. A struggling pub/restaurant hiring 4 waitresses currently on NMW, will likely just make one or two redundant as a result of the NMW hikes. They can, of course, raise their prices for their customers but they've already tried to do this following the NI hikes last year and there's only so much price rising to be done before people simply don't bother to go to the pub/restaurant as frequently anymore and the business owner has to close. It also means small businesses needing to raise wages up the chain too - you can't have the waitress on a higher (or very close) wage to the bar manager, for example. So the bar manager's wage then has to increase too. Great for the staff... but generally not feasible for a lot of businesses in the current climate.

Increase in income tax payable on savings, dividends and rental income if you're a landlord are not right IMO. Income is income - tax it as such. I think its dangerous when the gov starts specifying types of work/roles that require more penalising taxation (i.e., landlord). Its clear what will happen - the additional tax will be passed on to the renters in rent rises, and for struggling families that means less disposable income in the market and for lower income families it means directly paying back that tax-take to the landlord themselves in the form of UC for rent element. It's circular and pointless. Likewise, the savings income tax rise - why is the government disincentivizing people to save? Those on additional rate tax bands already have no personal savings allowance, so every single 1p they make in interest on savings will be taxed at 47%. This is grossly unfair IMO. Not too much issue for me as I am comfortable with stocks and shares and will just transfer cash savings (outside of ISAs) to S&S investment account as CGT is less than income tax - but I know that for a vast number of people investing is not something they are comfortable with, nor is it appropriate for those who want to take the savings as use them in the very near future (it needs to be invested for multiple years to de-risk it).

Salary sacrifice rules are contradictory with the governments conversation on pensions to date. We hear that the UK is not saving sufficient sums to their pension and that the gov wants to incentivize us to save more into our pensions (probably as they know the state pension is a bubble that will inevitably burst and many people will have to rely on their private pension in their elderly years!). Yet, as a direct result of the salary sacrifice limit rules my pension will lose out on £2,700 of contributions each year (my employer puts both employee and full employer NI savings into the pot as a result of salary sacrifice arrangement). Compound that across the 30 years I have left to work and that number becomes a big number, making a significant change in my overall pension pot value come retirement.

And yet, we're all supposed to be thankful that those saints in the Labour party took away the 2 child cap and as a result raised the welfare bill even further. It's genuinely ridiculous and a huge display of economic illiteracy and incompetence.

I think overall it’s a good budget

the outrage ive heard over the mansion tax is laughable . You would think they had set it at 1 million

Doesn’t help at all with the farm moving down generationally, though. Which is the main issue here.

Honestly I think 4 million would have been an incredibly fair starting point. I understand to people not in the industry that sounds like an awful lot of money, but everything is so expensive it gets swallowed up so quickly.

As I said before, my examples are from one of the cheapest places to buy and live in the UK. I don’t know how any farmers in the south of England will ever cope considering land value there alone is hugely more expensive.

Poverty is not something anyone should live in, adults or children and long term this impacts on the health and longevity of the individuals. So individuals in the most most deprived areas don't live as long etc. and it becomes a cycle as the cost of things go up people need more to survive. However money doesn't fix the underlying issues, it of course helps but we need to improve education, get more people working, improve wages and build communities to support individuals and families, this will help improve the position longer term.

So all those who don't work will now be paid more from our taxes .... the more children they have the more money they get.
All because the left wing back benchers are scared of losing their seats at the next election
They care about their jobs as MPs not about the kids.
They have broken their manifesto promises yet again.
Bring on reform

I'm pretty sure businesses will deduct employer national insurance contributions from pension contributions.
So if you and your employer put in over £2000 to your pension per year it'll be taxed at 17 or 23% depending whether you're salary is over £50k.
NI is regressive tax at this point: The higher rate is for lower earners who are trying to save more. Yet another tax cliff edge!
It will hit most people in their 40s and 50s trying to do the right thing for retirement.

I'd like to think it is to encourage younger people to pay into pensions early so they put the £2k in per year.
I estimate that the average UK earner with the standard NEST pension isn't impacted (but haven't researched the detail).

You are part the problem not the solution.

A violent or abusive parent should still be financially responsible for their children but with no right of access, or only supervised access via a contact centre. It's unreasonable to expect the taxpayer to be happy about assuming full financial responsibility just because one parent refuses to step up.

Taxes pay for welfare to be a safety net, not a lifestyle choice and not a substitute parent for parents who can / could step up financially but can't be bothered. (children in care excepted)

If your concern is genuinely about child welfare, your energy would be far better spent asking why absent parents are allowed to dodge their financial obligations rather than trying to shame or malign people who think personal responsibility matters. Help should exist to supplement, not replace, parental responsibility. It should also be limited by number of children and time.

So, stop trying to insult the intelligence of people who feel empathy with the mother and compassion for children whilst also having an expectation of responsibility from parents.

I think the evidence is that this seldom happens - that birth rates are not greatly affected. I can hunt out the evidence but not now , I m on my way to work 🙂🙂