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

[Mushroo]

Honestly in despair at this government. On a very high level calc, we are so much worse off!

We both pay a lot into pensions, so the NI change is about £700 a year worse off.

We have an EV car, so based on our 4k a year mileage, it’s about £120 a year. (Although how it will be enforced I have no idea).

Stagnating tax thresholds, probably about £100 a year between us.

Council tax F house (4 bed end terrace, not a mansion, needs renovating). So risk of revaluation after having paid a fortune in stamp duty. We didn’t get first time buyer stamp duty relief because we bought about 2 years too early, and we moved before Covid so no relief there either. So overall we’ve paid about £30k in stamp duty already over our lifetime.

Weve already had the private school hit (which is a separate debate and we’ve accepted that) but wow, we are just being kicked on all sides.

We are classic ‘middle earners’ - earn about £70k each, but have mahoosive mortgage and pay over £2k a month in nursery fees already.

Every measure just seems to have a negative effect on our lifestyle, which is ‘comfortable’ but increasingly squeezed.

Agreed. How greedy, robotic and uninspired are these people?! How awful to have a country of diligent tax payers sneering at the less valuable and neglecting risk, entrepreneurship and creativity in favour of PAYE and nastiness?!

If the job was inside IR35 he wouldn’t have been able to do this, but weird he’s worked inside IR35 for so long without just getting a permanent employed role if it was that bad

@Woollyguru think you are lucky , I’ve looked at Sweden via umbrella ( self employed visas very hard to get even if you have been business a long while earning around £110k in total) the employer and employee contributions are way way more than UK , same in a fair old chunk of other places - we are not IR35 restricted, genuine freelancers.
if you have a right to be here though without needing sponsorship visas that umbrella companies can sort ( and charge a fair old whack ) then why go via umbrella company ? Or did the client insist on it? If you needed the visas then these arrangements are the cost of being here and yep they can work but you can’t get round things the way others can by self employment/kits companies/ dividends etc -Are you / a ltd company you might have paying the umbrella bill out of interest , or is the client (s) paying that you work for ? The fact is the Uk can’t afford for people to be coming in , whacking away large money in pensions and getting tax relief on it without paying NI on it - personally I would get rid of such schemes, they are tax avoidance under a cosy name and only available to people with an awful lot of spare cash floating around month to month - if you want low tax but hammered on goods and services instead then maybe somewhere like Dubai, Switzerland or even the states will be more your way of doing things -

thong is with Sweden when I looked at it I can see why a family especially with young kids would factor all this in and go for it , lovely big rental homes in great condition are much much cheaper often looking into lakes, woods, good public transport in many semi rural areas and childcare very much cheaper . UK , I struggle to see why those not British might come these days, it’s not low tax when you factor in NI and council tax , services are pretty poor in many areas unless you go private and wages are middling at best unless in a really high earning sector like banking or legal and unless buying a lot of rented housing is crap - even at highish levels - I don’t blame the current gvt at all, I blame the 14 years that lead up to this- However Brexit made sure of one thing, it trapped a lot of middle earners here who might otherwise have thought ‘sod this’

obviously not unreasonable and it’s rubbish you’re being hit at every angle. I’d probably get independent financial advice to see if there is any way to save.

I think she should pay all the tax due and stop complaining.

The problem with the EV tax is that EVs often only make sense in the context of doing high mileage. In fact the recouperation of fuel costs is often one of the few things that makes the expensive purchase cost of the battery worth it.

Start hitting people who are doing high mileage with the extra tax (20000 miles =600 a year) then you are basically adding in another £6000 of costs over a 10 year lifespan which makes them even more unviable.

I am a bit pissed because I run a PHEV on relatively low mileage. Most of the mileage I use is on battery. I was hoping that because they could not discriminate between petrol and electric they would exempt PHEVs but the tax is still there just halved. I suppose the good news is my mileage is so low that it will not be a huge price anyway, but of course anything more is unwelcome.

I don't think this tax is sending the right message about the transition to EVs. They should have put more tax on petrol and on heavy cars like SUVs IMO to encourage/force the switch over.

They do have to make up the revenue loss from petrol/diesel, but to me that should be introduced further down the line while they continue to tax petrol/diesel off the roads.

How will those planning to move abroad cope with the language barrier? (Except those going ' home'). I'm thinking learning the language to be able to work in Sweden would be a massive issue for example?

How do you know it will make any difference to the actual children? puts more money in their parents pocket, but no guarantee the children actually see any benefit.

If you are on the poverty line and can't support 2 children, perhaps don't have a 3rd...

Try being a full time unpaid carer to a disabled child. Then you'll know what squeezed actually means.

No sympathy.

Do what I did and learn to budget better.

Very few people are planning on moving abroad. Visas and languages aside, they’ll give up their salaried job here to get another one… where?!? Oh let me guess. The only answer to this is ever Dubai, good luck with that.

I have come across a fair few people in the UK who want to move to Dubai because there are "too many Muslim foreigners in London it's not England anymore" where do they think Dubai is apart from somewhere you go to from terminal 5 at Heathrow 🤔

All the British people I know who have moved to Dubai or plan to- or even, like Dubai- are British south east Asians (usually Pakistani/ Bangladeshi rated than Indian)

I think they go there because it’s so much more comfortable for them rather than facing the racism and lack of opportunity in the uk

its a shame really. They contributed so much here

If you'd read the thread, they haven't got kids in private school yet.

Someone has to pay for it as long as it’s not you?

I have a great deal of sympathy for you but that is not the taxpayers fault.

With Umbrella companies you are a 'fake' employee, on their payroll paying all the employment costs, but some Umbrella companies do provide the option of salary sacrifice schemes.

Your on about 11k a month between you both, I’d say your incredibly comfortable. You’re also not a middle earner household absolutely in the top earners. Quit moaning, your child/ren go to private school, come on. Just no.

Just speak english at half the speed and twice the volume.

Fair dos for them some of my colleagues have family who have done this.
It is the Tommy Robinson supporters that I have recently come across who think Dubai is grat

Here[s an idea. Pay more tax, build a nice society so that your kids can go to the nice, well-funded local primary, save the money you would have spent on private school.

Well, it’ll be spent on the “actual children” because there’ll be more warmth, more food, less stress…..

How do you know that, no guarantee it's spent on food or heating, could be spent on anything... If it was given in the form of vouchers then I would be more inclined to agree.

The OP claimed to have been stitched up by the changes to private schools, then admitted later that their child was in nursery but may / will go to a private school. That really doesn’t gain her any sympathy. If private schools are unaffordable, then use state like the majority of the country. If she lives in a band F house, then it’s a safe assumption that there will be good schools in the area. Or, they have the privilege to be able to move into the catchment of a good one.

I’m a tax adviser and I’m also stumped at “salary sacrifice” using umbrella company as self employed person.

Why? In this context they are payrolled employees of the umbrella company, I have seen few companies that support it as part of their payroll process.

The whole system is a joke, making them pay all the employment costs, apprentice levy etc.