Anyone watching the Budget 2024?

[LadyofRutshire]

I couldn't find a thread on today's budget. Anyone watching live?

Can they not buy an annuity with beneficiary pension-similar to a db scheme?

Massive scare fest from the right wing press over the last few weeks. Nothing that drastic, unless you are a small business owner and then I would be scared!!

GPs, like NHS dentists, opticians and pharmacist, are mostly contractors - private businesses who contract their services to the NHS. This has been the case since the start of the NHS. GPs generally form partnerships and provide agreed services to the NHS in exchange for amounts of money as laid out in the GMS contract. They might also offer private services like travel jabs, insurance assessments, occupational health assessments. But the vast majority of income comes from the NHS. The GP partners who run the business take a share of the profit rather than a salary (though there may be salaried GPs within the practice).

Benifits to rise by 1.7% in 2025.

Bit of a mixed bag but better than I was expecting.

It's nice to a see a shift towards taxing assets rather than income - it's ridiculous to expect people that have done well for themselves but aren't actually wealthy to shoulder the largest tax bracket. I do worry about the impact on working farms though as food and energy security should be our top priorities.

Minimum wage is a bit of a mixed back. On the surface raising it that high is a good thing as it will hopefully increase the spending power of people on that income and make them (and their employers) less reliant on the welfare state. However, minimum wage has increased by over 80% in the last ten years. Has anyone else had that raise? No.

So now you can leave school at 16 with no qualifications and earn more than a junior doctor, paramedic, nurse, or civil servant. I'm sure that won't have any negative social consequences at all...

Honestly, why bother working hard at all? You can earn the equivalent of a 30-40k salary on benefits, especially when you factor in housing, childcare, etc. The average "decent" wage isn't that much higher. Why bother going back to work after having a child when most of your wages will be spent on childcare and tax to fund other women to stay at home? In fact, why bother getting a job in the first place? Why bother studying, or taking on more responsibilities, or even just trying harder - when doing the absolute bare minimum in this country gets you a similar level of lifestyle? No wonder we have record unemployment and worklessness among young people.

But that is different.

I have no concerns about taxing it selling up.

But it isn't right to charge IHT on working farms. If the next generation farm they should be exempt.

Tbf Starmer and co did go strong on ‘pain’ from early on in press conferences

As for small business owners you’re right they’re likely feeling it today, but it’s not just them, the economy relies on their growth so if it does impact them it will jobs and growth too

I would imagine any one who works for a business might be a bit cautious....as the cuts and redundancies start

But yeah, public sector folks can rest easy

Yes it's a lot of words a simple list in plain English would help I'm not aware of anything good coming out of the budget schools should be teaching useful skills
Not wasting kids potential making the learn things that won't help anyone. get a job

Aren’t inter-generational farms held in trusts or companies?

I do think farming and fam land should have high levels of protection though.

Why don't people read properly?

She has explained over and again.

And you mean "tone deaf" I think, not "tone death"

Useful skills like language and communication, perhaps? I'm always curious about comments like this.

The economy is growing, there are lots of job vacancies and low unemployment, so a pretty good time to bring in measures which may affect employment as the market is pretty robust just now.

Why should farm land be exempt from any sort of tax upon inheritance? & if land is sold, it will be bought by other landowners/farmers... as happens when there is no children who want to take on the farm.

Farmers are already selling off land for development, as it makes them extremely wealthy.

The bigger issue is that gilt yields are creeping up.

I agree there isn't anything that drastic in this budget.

If farmland is ringfenced for farming only never development, the land value will drop, so will the IHT. That might be in future discussions.

Having a clearer plan for services that they will be funded, closing unfair loopholes for the inequality increasing divide, making work pay.

Their are winners and losers in every budget, every one, that's life. We are not winners this time, in budget terms, but if the NHS, education, all services, their staff and some beginnings of a society working together for the overall good for all begins to emerge that will be a huge step forward.

I think this budget is fairly steady. And it seems like the beginning of the conversation and actions of something different.

I truly hope it works.

"Not many farmers could service a £500K inheritance tax bill if their land is valued around £2m"

It will be nowhere near that much in that situation. Don't forget that APR is in addition to the tax free threshold that everybody has.

If you have a farm that is also your main residence then you can leave up to £1 million to your children free of IHT anyway and you can then shelter up to £1 million of the value of the agricultural property as well.

So you can pass on up to £2 million without paying IHT.

"...if their land is valued around £2m"

If the land itself is valued around £2 million and they also have other assets worth at least £1 million then APR will be limited to £1 million and so they will pay 20% on the amount above that, so £200k in total rather than £500k

Think it was probably that one line that wound Sunak up into a rage 😂😂

He probably thinks it's completely unfair after he paid 23% tax on his 2bn last year.

I pay almost that on my tens of thousands!

Or you work for one, which a great number of people do.

worrying perhaps about GPs though; doesn't sound like new money for them, just for premises, which isn't always the issue. And more on paying staff. And still not really given funding to hire new GPs for decent numbers of hours with the funding they already had. I hope this doesn't mean even more retiring; my GP is near retirement age, as are several in the practice, and I worry a bit about it closing or reducing even further and making it harder to get appointments.

Massive scare fest from the right wing press over the last few weeks. Nothing that drastic, unless you are a small business owner and then I would be scared!!

Quite a lot of the tax paying public then.

People have no idea I think just how many small businesses and sole traders there are, and their importance to the economy.

Awful Thatcher legacy.

Just wait.

nothing on the police unless I missed it? I was hoping for more funding for them

A sensible, clearly laid out budget, that despite the desperate attempts by the far/right-wing press to stir up outrage ('Labour's war on vapes') it's clear that the economy is now in much more competent hands than it was under Truss et al.
I'm old enough to remember the doom-laden prophecies that met the introduction of the NMW, and I'm in favour of extra rights for workers. I chuckled at her jokes about the shadow cabinet's right to maternity pay.

As a GP, we will have to cut staff to fund this. It will cost my practice approx £120k a year. We just don't make that kind of money where this is absorbable. It's more than any of the doctors earn.
So the next time a doctor leaves, we will not replace them