To think Labour won't increase taxes

[ArtVandeelay]

And Reeves will pull a rabit out of the hat and reduce taxes or increase the tax threshold.

I believe all this talk is just to manage expectations, and they will end up doing something pretty impressive on Budget Day.

I don’t think so lol - but we will find out next Wednesday.

You are delusional.

I do think they have floated just about every taxation policy increase under the sun, in the hope that when they finally come up with the budget it is less bad than everyone was expecting.

Still, I don't think we are likely to get no tax rises. Just a proportion of the ones that have been suggested.

Raising taxes when people won't see the benefits will sink them at the next election.

You got to give people hope. If it's all doom and gloom people become understandably dispondent and switch off.

This is why they need to do something that captures the public's imagination and gives them hope.

It’s going to be the biggest tax grab in history. Bigger than Lamont’s £38.5bn in 1993 and Healey’s £31.4bn in 1975. Reeves will be proud to take that record.

Well, they gave a lot of hope (and cash) to unions.

Given current state of Tories and both of their candidates unelectable I think Labour feel pretty safe. Plus it's usual policy to raise taxes in first year/s hoping that electorate will forget by next polls.

There are no rabbits. You can't take the winter fuel allowance away for some pensioners and then, somehow, produce a rabbit.

I think 30/10 will be true and real carnage

They'll raise taxes in some way now, in the hope of cutting them nearer to the election I would think.

I just hope whatever they do isn't too grossly unfair - some of the proposals being floated seem discriminatory in various ways.

This was pre GE selling in and after for unions

The rest will get the hard stuff

The budget deficit is over £80bn, public services are in tatters and the UK economy has seriously underperformed for years. Taxes have to go up in the short term simply to stave off national bankruptcy, unless you cut spending heavily.

The difficulty is how the government finds the spare money to invest in infrastructure so that the economy can grow again (which will then pay for public services and allow taxes to fall) while putting in enough money to stop public services from completely collapsing in the interim.

The FT have done a budget game so you can try and work out how to do it yourself. It's really hard!

https://ig.ft.com/chancellor-game/

How bad can it be? Cost of living is already crippling people. I don’t see how things can be made worse on a day to day basis? Capital gains tax, inheritance tax, etc, those sort of one off things are a different story.

I think they will gather the around 20 billions they are looking for, but not from NI contributions or income tax, at least for the lower thresholds (they may try to chip a bit from the high high earners).
It will need to come from other taxes. Here hoping that it will tax big corporations excessive profits, excessive bonuses and unfair financial moves.
On the later, increasing taxes on rent income could be one. There have been people evicted from their low rent homes, for no fault of their own. Property is then sold and refurbished or rebuilt to emerge as new rentals as much much higher price. It is things like that that drive the housing prices up and the cost of getting a roof over your head in UK is far far too large already.
I think the pounds to plug the hole will come from things like this indeed.

This is what my financial advisor thinks!!

Oh, I forgot. They should speed up the fining of Water companies in breech. That would round a few pounds too!

And remember if too many people are crippled financially then it sinks the economy as people stop spending. Businesses go under, etc.

Yes, if I was a landlord I might be slightly twitched.

They’ll just pass it on, water bills are going up more than expected already

The budget deficit is over £80bn, public services are in tatters and the UK economy has seriously underperformed for years. Taxes have to go up in the short term simply to stave off national bankruptcy, unless you cut spending heavily.
The difficulty is how the government finds the spare money to invest in infrastructure so that the economy can grow again (which will then pay for public services and allow taxes to fall) while putting in enough money to stop public services from completely collapsing in the interim.
*
The FT have done a budget game so you can try and work out how to do it yourself. It's really hard!*

This!

Whatever gov in power was going to have to do this, we are fucked.

They will certainly try, but they should not be allowed to cripple companies offering basic services, leaving behind obsolete plants and making people sick or inconvenienced for lack of drinking water supply ( in UK- like it rains every day here!) and pass the money we pay for the water to their stakeholders. I trust that Labour will stop them. The Guardian has indeed an article about it, I think today. These guys need to pay for the harm they have done. They actually are a good example to set. They thought they could get away with it, but it should not be so, at all.

My IFA seemed to think that the numbers (whatever they are) that are coming through on the tail of the Tory government are better than expected which takes the pressure off the amount that R Reeves needs to find.

It’s all speculation and I really hope that they’ve done an Expectation Management number on us, and it ends up being less dire than predicted.

Who knows?

@MushMonster they should but it won’t happen.

I can only hope. At the end of the day they are are Labour government.