Budget 2015 - what do you think?

[KateMumsnet]

Today at 12.30pm - and with only 50 days until the general election - chancellor George Osborne will deliver the last budget of this government. Amongst other things, he’s expected to announce an increase in the personal tax allowance, a reduction in the rate at which savings are taxed and, possibly, a move on inheritance tax. We'd love to know what you'd like to see emerge from his briefcase - and to hear what you think as he announces his measures.

[smilingthroughgrittedteeth]

Not taxing what little I can afford to save sounds good to me and getting help saving for a deposit must sound pretty good to all those private tenants who desperately want to get on the property ladder I would imagine.

[glenthebattleostrich]

I disagree plonkysaurus.

I see it as no silly promises, a deliberate step away from making promises they may not be in a position to keep.

Ed Milliband at times came across as a spiteful schoolboy and I don't think he handled his response well at all. He did nothing to convince me to vote labour.

And as for nothing for struggling families the higher personal allowance is brilliant. Minimum wage is not increasing enough but is still going up.

Fuel duty won't be going up in September, removing savings tax, making it cheaper to employ under 21s.

And builders getting work repairing church roofs!

[smilingthroughgrittedteeth]

I agree glen about the no promises, I'd rather not have a government that make promises then don't follow through, if they cant increase spending then leave it as it is and focus on what you can do.

[Plonkysaurus]

Well of course, not taxing savings is probably a good thing. But I don't think that helping first time buyers out is a priority, rather helping the millions of families who rent and aren't in a position to lift themselves out of a vulnerable position. What about the bedroom tax that the poorest in society are just having to put up with? First time buyers aren't affected by this stuff in the way that millions who have no hope of ever owning their own homes are. It's a budget for the middle classes - I'm alright, Jack.

But look, I'm clearly a lefty and disagree with a lot (but not necessarily everything) GO ever says.

Ed Milliband at times came across as a spiteful schoolboy - I'm not going to deny this, but only pointing the finger at him is to feign ignorance of the behaviour of all other politicians!

Glen, the points you raise are valid, but tbh I see them as tidbits, just token small mercies flung at the people who struggle to earn enough to scrape by.

[Notrevealingmyidentity]

Does this only happen if the Tories get in in the next election ?

[skyeskyeskye]

the budget stuff is so misleading though - Class 2 NIC isn't going to be abolished, they will be collecting it through self assessment, so it will still exist, they just won't be taking it monthly.

I hate it when things aren't reported properly!

[glenthebattleostrich]

No, I loath all professional politicians. I believe you should be banned from serving in parliament until you can prove you've had a real actual job, not just done university then worked in Westminster / for a political party or MP. Unfortunately this would wipe out most of our current politicians!

You know when I was earning a pittance working in a bar and as a cleaner to be able to pay my rent I wish I'd been able to save that little bit of tax, would have made the difference between eating or not some weeks. But hey, I'm just imagining poverty under the last labour government!

[Armchairathlete]

So Plonky - rasing hundreds of thousands of the lowest paid out of paying any tax is I'm all right Jack?
Freezing petrol duty is?
Making it easier for peopel who rent to buy a home is?
Rasing minimum wage is?

I think you were watching a different budget!

[Justanotherlurker]

The church roofs thing is because the government effectively removed the VAT exemption that the Church had, so VAT now has to be paid on the restoration/repairs of listed church buildings.

IIRC it was brought in as there was a glaring omission that owners of any listed building could essentially pay for an extension/swimming pool and be VAT exempt.

[TooExtraImmatureCheddar]

Oooh, the personal allowance is increasing by a pants-wetting £200 a year. What on earth will I do with my extra £16.67 a month?

And yes, why on earth would they spend £15M on repairing church roofs? Thought the various Churches can fund their own flipping roof repairs. The Catholic Church is loaded and I'm sure the Churches of England and Scotland aren't short of a few bob either.

"Annual bank levy to rise to 0.21%, raising an extra £900m. Banks to be barred from deducting compensation for mis-selling from corporation tax" Can anyone explain why an individual pays 20% income tax (or 40% if they're a higher rate tax payer) but massively rich organisations pay 0.21%? It makes no sense to me.

[Plonkysaurus]

No Glen I'm not saying that didn't happen...I'm really not interested in throwing personal insults around or getting angry with posters. My experience is that when I went back to work after maternity leave, I was able to claim childcare tax credits. When the personal allowance rose, I was eligible for fewer of those tax credits, which is fair, but smacks of giving with one hand and taking away with the other.

Do you see why this affects working families more than individuals?

[Cumberlover76]

Help to Buy Isa Outline

Says it's per person rather than per property.

[Plonkysaurus]

No Armchair, watching the same budget as you but with a different perspective.


That's allowed right?

[TooExtraImmatureCheddar]

Cross post with Justanotherlurker, but honestly, I'm still not seeing why church roofs are being repaired out of the public purse! Thought we had separation of church and state in this country.

[Justanotherlurker]

Well £200 is a lot to someone on a low wage.
And with minimum wage going up by 20p/hr, some people could be better off by £600 a year.

[rubbishdeskhoover]

The problem with the personal allowance raise is that it's much more advantageous for higher earners. Yes it saves lower-paid people some tax, but it saves higher-paid people more on average. Higher-paid earners will also be benefiting from the increase in the top rate threshold, so they'll be doubly better off.

This is hardly a budget for the low paid.

Consensus elsewhere seems to be that Ed Miliband did very well with his response given that he has no idea what's going to be in the budget and has to do it on the fly. Osborne seems to have come up with several policies purely so that he could make weak jokes aimed at EM during the budget speech, which is hardly the measure of a mature politician.

[Plonkysaurus]

Precisely, Cheddar.

And Justanotherlurker I agree that every bit of money counts when you're on a low wage. But consider this "The threshold at which people start paying 40p income tax to rise by above inflation from £42,385 in 2014-5 to £43,300 in 2017-8" (from BBC).

So if you work 37.5 hours a week on NMW, you might get an extra £390 in your 'pay rise', plus the increase in your personal allowance, £200. The figures at the lower end of the income scale are actually only in keeping with what's happening with higher rate tax payers too. The difference is that families surviving on NMW are more likely to depend on in work benefits like tax credits and housing benefit. Higher rate tax payers are not, so I see this as a way of cutting benefits and making the private sector pay.

[ihategeorgeosborne]

I think raising the tax free allowance is a good thing. Letting people keep more of what they earn is a good thing. Labour should have done this too, but didn't. They just decided to tax everyone more and shower them with tax credits instead. It was a stupid thing to do.

[rubbishdeskhoover]

I think it would be a fine thing to do if public services weren't be decimated to pay for it, people being sent to food banks, people's benefits cut and so on - it's all been at the expense of the most vulnerable. I'd rather see the rich pay more and the poor pay less. Raising the personal allowance is the opposite of progressive; it's basically a stealth flat tax in reverse and flat taxes are deeply regressive.

[Plonkysaurus]

You've said what I've been trying to all along, Rubbish.

No mention of the NHS, education, environmental policies or anything that we actually rely on to keep the country healthy and happy. It was all about business, savings and sodding churches. And that's precisely what I meant when I said it's an I'm alright Jack budget. God forbid anyone in support of it one day requires the use of a public service. Our infrastructure's been decimated and we're paying for the design of a new coin?

[TooExtraImmatureCheddar]

I am grudgingly interested in the Help To Buy promise, though. It would help me personally.

[Isitmebut]

rubbishdeskhoover .... the Conservative public sector cuts will bring spending down to the 2000 level, but as we never saw in 2010 (three years after the financial crash started on their watch) WHAT Labour was going to cut, their 2010 to 2015 departmental spending figures, or the tax rises they told us would be higher than the other two main parties - how do you know what they'd do, as they STILL are keeping their plans vague?

The rich are paying more tax, the poor brought out of tax altogether.

How do you think if there was not a recovery under Labour, waiting for things to turn up with a fat bloated government increasing the annual budget deficit and/or massive tax rises for all to bring it down - FOOD BANKS would not have been busier?

[ipadmad]

I think they should have abolished the universal winter fuel allowance for pensioners, allowing only the needy pensioners to claim it. Clearly don't want to lose the silver vote

[GentlyBenevolent]

Higher earners won't benefit at all by the increase in the personal allowance. We don't get a personal allowance.

[rubbishdeskhoover]

Well I don't think Labour would have let the recession go on for so long, because their approach would have been more Keynesian. Osborne has actually come around to Labour's way of thinking rather sharply on that in the last year or so; he saw that the austerity policies were dragging down employment rates and tax receipts and making everything worse, and he's been desperately back-peddling. But by the time he saw it and corrected it, the most vulnerable and desperate people were queuing up at food banks.