To be concerned about tax u turn

[Costaoff]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/14/rachel-reeves-to-abandon-plans-to-raise-income-tax-rates-in-budget

It's evident that Reeves has been forced to back pedal by Starmer. How can you promise not to raise income tax; leak story after story about the need to increase income tax; and then make a last minute u-turn.

I think they will just target everything: pensions, lower the tax threshold; insurance tax; alcohol duty; capital gains taxs; stamp duty.

I think their proposal to increase income tax by 2% but reduce NI by 2% was sensible.

It's all lies. Labour promised last year's budget was the last tax grab they'd do this parliament. So presumably we are in for tax cuts this time around? Unless they lied of course.

It's good news.

They need to get the tax off earned income, stuff like income tax and NI and get it on to things like CGT, inheritance tax, pensions and housing and balance the books in the process.

I did not think they would have the bottle to do this but maybe, just maybe they actually might act like a Labour government for once.

Many of their problems are of their own making. They ruled out meaningful tax rises in their manifesto for no good reason - they would’ve easily won regardless. They have then been tinkering around the edges, pissing off pockets of the population in a piecemeal fashion and then rowing back each time.

They should‘ve introduced a wide package of changes at the same time on Day 1 - at least when everyone is getting fucked collectively then no-one feels singled out.

They lied.

We are all screwed, typical Labour.

Taxing people’s homes and savings that they have diligently saved for for decades, how dare they.

Exactly this.
Things that have been underfunded for years that the public now want improved

The Prison Service
NHS
Education/Educational Support
Social Services
Childrens Services
Mental Health Provision

Suggested increased contribution from individuals and groups that the public have rejected/complained about

Individual tax rises
Targeted benefit cuts e.g. Winter fuel payments
Inheritance tax on landowners
Multi millionaire businesses (They will no longer invest apparently)
Multi Millionaire individuals (They will leave the Country apparently)

Labour stated “fully funded and fully costed”. It’s those lies that lose them support.

Speak for yourself. We can’t take any more taxes.

It’s a result of a party with no plan and weak leadership. Starmer, on coming into office, said that his government would put country before party. And yet, almost every single policy decision has been modified, reversed or abandoned to appease his party. He has no overarching vision of what he wants to achieve, no policies to achieve it and no conviction in what he does do. Deciding policy based on public opinion alone isn’t leadership, it’s an abdication of responsibility. If he doesn’t want the responsibility of leadership, and good lawyers rarely make good leaders, then he should make way for someone that does, IMO. Albeit there are limited options…!

If they aren't going to cut spending (they should) then income tax increases cause far fewer problems that all the messing around with other taxes.

It will be a totally shit budget. Can't stand UK politics it's utterly depressing how shit they all are. I pray reform will be an improvement but then I thought labour would be better than the tories - how stupid I was.

We need to hugely cut benefits and encourage people in to work. Pip needs to be stopped for mental health. NHS needs to be chargeable for foreign born people. No benefits at all for people who are not born in the UK.

You forgot the bit where they tried to change the benefits and do stuff like curtail the winter fuel allowance.

That was met, pretty predictably, by a massive howl of rage.

I think whatever you propose these days there is going to be a lot of howling on social media from the affronted.

So pretty much best ignore it and get on with what you want to do.

Perhaps they shouldn’t lie about fully funded and fully costed and one off tax hikes last year and people (not you) wouldn’t be affronted

Well the millionaires are leaving and businesses have cancelled billions of pounds worth of investment in the past few months alone.

House building in London has collapsed.

They say they "open for business" and then tax jobs and increase regulations and make it more expensive to do business in the UK.

We have massive budget deficit and they give billions away to Chagos and Palestine that we can't afford and dont need to.

If they want to fund the NHS better then perhaps they shouldn't spend billions on things like that.

I would be happy for them to Legalise, regulate and tax cannabis if it keeps taxes down, it's virtually legal now anyway, the police don't bother. That would raise billions surely.

They are like a deer in the headlights of public opinion.

Their only plan at the moment is to try to cling on to power by whatever means possible.

What we need is a conviction politician who is going to stand up and say, we're going to do this, and you may not like it but we think it is for the best.

The big problem is that they should have done this at the last election, but instead traded it for weasel words and a shot at power.

They said that their manifesto was fully costed. We didn’t need huge tax rises apparently. They then said last year that the tax rises were a once in a generation event. They either messed their calculations up originally, or things have got substantially worse under their leadership. Either scenario shows total incompetence.

This flailing around, creating huge uncertainty, having no real plan whilst trying to save their own skins is a disgrace.

Exactly this. The only way to raise a meaningful amount is to tax a lot more people a bit more (eg 1p on income tax or VAT). It would raise a large amount whilst only impacting people a relatively small amount. Tinkering around the edges and trying to get large amounts of tax off a small section of society never works and often doesn’t end up raising tax.

At a guess, people who are disappointed that income tax won’t increase are people either not paying any or at least not in a high band.
This mentality that « others should pay » needs to change!

Can you get emergency A&E care with your private provider?

It will be an interesting budget, every single tax from insurance to flights to inheritance tax will probably rise along with yet another freeze or even lowering of the tax thresholds, might they even increase vat, who knows

What they are doing is perfectly normal and is the same thing done by previous governments. They are sending tax proposals to the OBR who then analyse them and respond telling the chancellor what impact they think it will have. This is an iterative process as it should be.

What are you about? we're have one of the highest taxation, it's just much lower than in the rest of developed world at the bottom-middle level but way much higher at the top.

I assume you aren't a higher tax payer to make statements about "would scarcely have noticed the increase anyway"

Clearly hasnt either a plan or a clue.

useless.

Agreed. They’re doing some really odd, backwards things to gain money. One example is scrapping the cycle to work scheme, another to scrap electric cars being exempt from congestion charges. Makes no sense. Winter fuel was obviously a majorly stupid decision last year too.

They don’t really know what they’re doing, it’s pretty obvious. The tories didn’t either.