After a long wait. The Autumn Budget is finally here!!! 💰

[Cosywintervibes]

https://news.sky.com/story/budget-2025-raft-of-tax-hikes-expected-today-as-more-policies-confirmed-13475413

Anyone like to join me in watching the budget today?

Young people will be pensioners one day so it's in their interests also to see the state pension keep pace with the cost of living. The imbalance isn't between generations as such but between those whose income comes from earnings and those whose money comes from assets, an imbalance the budget made some small steps towards addressing but only small. As a PP mentions the extra burden placed on earnings by student loan repayments is one of the biggest generational inequalities, making it much more difficult for current graduates to accrue similar levels of assets as previous generations.

The existing state pension will be means tested by the time current young people retire. It has to because otherwise the cost will take up a larger and larger share of Government expenditure so that there's little money left for anything else (education, health etc).

Perhaps all benefits will be means tested. Maybe they should be.

That’s a very good highlight actually, thank you 👏🏼

id argue we are there now. Pretty sure most taxes goes towards pensions no? Also I’m sure there is more older people than young right now too?

Leaked budget details on the Internet. On the surface. I think this tells you everything you need to know about the spectacular incompetence of this Labour Government.

Maybe a Whistleblower.

Don't think so.

More like a Public School Oxbridge entitled shit bag. Sending warning signals to his friends who work on the Stock Market for Global Financial/Investment Companies.

Is this debacle going to be investigated?

The OBR leak has nothing to do with the government. Dear God, is this level of political literacy widespread in the population?

It wasn’t actively leaked - ie it wasn’t published on their website, but the document hadn’t been locked so a researcher/journo was simply able to enter the website domain of the last budget and change the date and it appeared. I do this all the time on research websites. The person who happened across it then downloaded and shared it. The error was in not locking it/marking it private. They probably had no idea it was accessible via that type of search. It was a systems error/compliance failure.

I bet the journo was delighted

Yep, a career-making moment he will dine out on until Christmas, I suspect 🤣

Indeed. My university employer and I make large payments into USS and that isn't salary sacrifice either.

Can you imagine. The feeling of trying the click down date and it working 😬

I don’t understand what is salary sacrifice and what isn’t. I have my own business which pays into my pension on my behalf. Is that caught by the new law or not?

So Reeves lied? Shocker

" The OBR says it informed Rachel Reeves as far back as September 17 that the downgrade in productivity forecasts was offset by 'increases in real wages and inflation'. The deficit was in fact just £2.5billion
By October 31 that deficit had turned into net positive of £4.2billion. That basic forecast did not change from that point
So from what the OBR is saying it looks like Rachel Reeves and the Treasury were briefing ahead of the Budget that there was a £20billion black hole in the public finances that didn't actually exist
The £30billion worth of tax rises in the Budget are predominantly a consequence of her decisions to increase public spending, particularly on welfare, and have £21.7billion worth of headroom
As @Peston @PippaCrerar @hzeffman have all pointed out, it makes the Budget build up - and the narrative that big tax rises were coming because of a deterioration in the public finances - look frankly surreal in hindsight"

Salary sacrifice is when you agree to reduce your gross salary or sacrifice a bonus and, in return, your employer pays the same amount into your pension.

But why would they put NI on this but not other pension contributions, makes no sense.

Quelle surprise /s

Where is that quote from, please?

It was already on other pension contributions - in non salary sacrifice you get the tax back but not the NI.

Pension contributions outside salary sacrifice already incur NI. It’s equalisation.

Down’t worry - found it!

Most papers are now running the same story I think ie Times etc?

Robert Peston has also posted it

Robert Peston

The OBR has now published what the Chancellor and Treasury knew and when - in a letter to the Treasury Select Committee - about whether she would hit her fiscal targets. As you can see from the attached table, there was never a huge black hole from the productivity downgrade, because tax revenues were boosted by higher inflation and wages. The mystery therefore deepens about why the Chancellor, in her highly unusual press conference and subsequent interview, felt the need to create a sense of crisis.

So hang on, it wasn't the right wing media whipping up a crisis, it was RR herself??

There is “smart” salary sacrifice where your employer can pay the saved Ers NI into your pension. This change is going to reduce my annual pension contributions by 3k. It is so short sighted,

only very few public sector workers use salary sacrifice so it’s basically a way of hammering the private sector again. So much for all in it together

Yes, that's right employers could gift you the NI savings if they wanted. Now they only can up to the 2k.

I have never worked for a company where they have gifted you the NI savings ever and I’ve been using this salary sacrifice for years.
It was lovely while it lasted, but most of the people whingeing about not having it. Have never used it anyway.