Autumn Budget

[OccultOctopus]

Key points so far:

• Upper tax threshold dropped from £150k to £125k
• Other tax thresholds frozen until 2028
• Windfall tax on energy firms to go up to 35%
• Electric cars will have to pay VED from 2025
• Review of a further pension age rise brought forward
• More people on UC to be given 'support coaches' to help them find work
• Spending squeeze on all depts except health

The people in UC that don’t work are disabled or unpaid carers to family members. So if they want to help unpaid carers get into work then they would need to provide paid carers to care for their family member/s. I am a unpaid carer, I can not work full time because my dc has no one to care for her during school holidays (too old for childcare) and has hospital appointments to attend. So now they want me to attend a meeting…probably a hours bus ride away to sit with a adviser to see if they can get me into full time work? 🤔

This is a good summary!

@Lovemusic33 No your appointment can be done by teams are most likely will be

It's a bloody disgrace how carers are treated, should absolutely be paid a higher rate as you say its often impossible to work alongside caring for a loved one. Its compounded by the shortage of carers so even if someone can afford one doesn't mean they will find one that suits. It just highlights the disdain the government has for anyone in a caring role either professionally or who has had to leave paid work to do so.

Wish I could get a 10.9% uplift of money I get for doing nothing…

I know many who choose not to work. Including my own father who has lived on benefits my entire life supplemented with cash in hand decorating and gardening work. He will transition to a full state pension soon having not worked for at least 30 years.

Basically yes - the Tories are prioritising their core voters (pensioners + very rich) and have given in on benefits because the consequences of mass homelessness/destitution etc would be bad politically, at the expense of the rest of us

This is it in a nutshell. The Tories aren't increasing benefits in line with inflation because it is the right thing to do (which it is) it's because of the social unrest and upheaval that would be caused if they hadn't.

Benefits are low though, 10% of not very much is, well, not very much.

10.1%. And here we go with the anecdotes about scrounging relatives/neighbours/friends. There will loads of these in the coming days.

He will transition to a full state pension soon having not worked for at least 30 years

But you said he does work cash in hand.

...my own father who has lived on benefits my entire life supplemented with cash in hand decorating and gardening work

Make your mind up.

Figure out how to do a body swap and I'll trade places with you, no problem 🤷🏼‍♀️

You know what they mean, 'not having paid tax'

Yep Claudine being a pedant

Good that health will be ring fenced, though I worry about education.

I think the 'support coach' idea will be a waste of money.

Thank you for this, it’s very good! I do love listening to economists though so careful and precise

Careful now knowing what you heard I think it’s because we were talking about two slightly different questions

is the war having the greater impact (which I heard this morning and a yes)

And is Brexit impacting us - which the committee answered as yes too

They can both be true statements and likely are

👏 100%

I am just watching my salary get smaller and smaller. I am dreading the result of this review of pension age. It's already gone up 7 years since I started working.

BeyondThinkOfTheOptics yes, goid idea. If @LikeTearsInRain doesn't fancy swapping with you, they might like to swap with my DH who is disabled and unable to walk. Or me. Tears could get a whole 10% increase on £69 a week for providing round the clock care.

They can’t not give those on benefits money and this time they take it from the top - people get too outraged if those things don’t happen

It is hard to watch though. Just more payment.

This is the most Labour-esque Tory budget I’ve ever seen (so for that reason I’m broadly in agreement with the decisions made) .

On reflection, I think this is fundmentally why I don't think it's as bad as I thought it might be.

I'm in the middle so part of the group for whom there is little except a bit of energy help - but I'm glad to see some prioritisation of help for the lowest paid.

Of course, the real review happens when the details are worked through to see how they really impact individual circumstances. As always, this will show who the 'real' winners are and who really loses out.

No, Claudine being doubtful about veracity of story.

The reduction in living standards for the next two years, for working people, is going to be hard to take.

I support the benefits rise on principle, to not do it would be unacceptable. But I am not looking forward to the way it will feel in my own household over the next couple of years.

Umm, why do you think that? Of course there aren’t millions of people on universal credit who’ve never worked in their lives.

But I am not looking forward to the way it will feel in my own household over the next couple of years.

Yup. For many of us the old challenges will remain: food, mortgages and energy costs.

Another 20% on energy is pretty steep considering we're already seeing double the costs of a couple of years ago.

Anyone on a variable mortgage or with a fix that ends in the next two years is likely to see pretty steep increases there, too.

No sign of food inflation slowing yet, really, either.

The full list of announcements:

"Recap: Here are the chancellor's main announcements
Let's rewind a bit and take a look back at what we've heard from Jeremy Hunt today:

Taxation and wages:

The threshold for when the highest earners start paying the top rate of income tax will be brought down from £150,000 to £125,140
Income tax, personal allowance and higher rate thresholds will be frozen for a further two years, until April 2028 - this means that millions of people will pay more in tax when their incomes rise
The main National Insurance and inheritance tax thresholds will be frozen for a further two years, until April 2028
The National Living Wage will be increased from £9.50 an hour for over-23s to £10.42 from April next year
Tax-free allowances for dividend and capital gains tax is due to be cut next year and in 2024
Energy:

Help for energy bills will be extended, but it will be less generous from April next year
There will be targeted support with the cost of living for those on low incomes, disability and pensioners
A windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas firms will increase from 25% to 35% and be extended until March 2028
New "temporary" 45% tax on companies that generate electricity will be applied from January
Economy and public finances:

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) judges the UK to be in recession, meaning the economy has slowed for two quarters in a row
It predicts growth for this year overall of 4.2% but that the size of the economy will shrink by 1.4% in 2023
The UK's inflation rate is predicted to be 9.1% this year and 7.4% next year
Government will give itself five years to hit debt and spending targets, instead of the current three years
Other measures:

Means-tested benefits, including Universal Credit, will rise in line with inflation (10.1%)
State pensions will also rise by that same amount
Rent rises in the social sector will be capped at 7% in the next financial year
Lifetime cap on social care costs in England due in October 2023 delayed by two years
Sizewell C nuclear plant to go ahead
Northern Powerhouse rail and HS2 also to go ahead as planned
Government spending:

Defence spending to be maintained at 2% of national income - a Nato target
Overseas aid spending to be kept at 0.5% for next five years, below the official target of 0.7%
NHS budget will increase in each of the next two years by an extra £3.3bn
Schools will get an extra £2.3bn next year and the year after that."

There will be more questions about the choices Jezza made that may be more 'Tory' than 'Labour' once the details, rather tha just what was said in the Statement, are analysed.
Why the tax burden, through not raising thresholds, falls on all working people to meet the fiscal hole but the bank windfall tax is reducing from 8% to 3%, for example. There will be more of this as the likes of financial journalists, IFS etc read through all the pages of the fiscal statement and OBR report.
Expect to see this graph from the OBR report a lot in the next few days and definitely in the run up to the next election.

obr.uk/docs/C2.F-2.jpg

Haha why would I lie that my own father has not held down a legal job my entire life. My dad is perfectly able to work and has been fit to work my entire life - he has instead claimed benefits and performed undeclared cash in hand work to fund his daily visits to the bookies to bet on horses and the greyhounds. I have met numerous friends/associates of his in similar situations. I grew up in area surrounded by people who did and still are doing the same.