Apart from Tax Credits/Child Benefit cuts what are expecting tomorrow?

[nymphadora]

VAT increases?
What about tobacco/alcohol/Petrol?
Public sector cuts?

Defence cuts, big defence cuts. There is much panic amongst my military friends atm.

Further income tax changes. Maybe not to the rates but to the thresholds. Also changes to National Insurance for middle-income earners. I've been hearing that private pension contributions are going to lose out with changes to tax allowances - that would be a disaster if it were true.

Fags booze and fuel should all go up and I think there will be carrot/stick measures taken to encourage greener living besides. Maybe something on recycling and extra taxes for polluting industries.

Expecting wage/budget/recruitment freezes in public sector. Council tax freezes are in the news today and I think the funding to local gov't from central gov't will be frozen to match.

Not expecting CB to be cut but would have thought anyone earning enough to hit the 40% tax threshold will no longer qualify for CTC within a year or so. Think we'll see some interesting announcements on other benefits & state pensions, not sure what exactly.

It's heralded as a budget for the whole parliament rather than just the next year so the devil will be in the detail

I know local gov budgets have already dropped a lit this year. Lots of schools locally have just got their budgets & are panicing over redundancies foe Sept. My teams budget at work was already pretty small but don't know how badly it's hit until my boss is back.

Defence is another big issue locally.

My predictions are:

Tax credits to be phased out.
Child benefit to stop at 13.
VAT to increase to 20%.
Capital gains tax to increase.
EMA to be discontinued.
Income tax threshold to be increased.

Will be back tomorrow to see if my crystal ball works.

There is no point in anyone in Defence getting het up until after the SDSR takes place in the autumn. Until that happens, we don't know what the priorities will be; what will be saved or cut; what the Foreign policy will dictate the Armed Forces are tasked with; or even what the shape of the Forces will be.

I don't think the RN can be cut much further; it may well be that the RAF is over manned at present, and that Sir David Richards is being run for CDS because some cuts will fall on the Army. They may be able to save money in procurement and civvy staff, but I can't see huge amounts of front line military being cut.

BAFE has pretty grim predictions

all those cuts, yikes!

tax on airline fuel

Huge articles in our local paper today re Defence cuts, but as already said, nothing will be known until the Autumn.

Living in the Scottish Highlands, there are 4 bases they are looking to close, one of which is home to the Black Watch. If these 4 bases close, the majority of the "British" forces, will be based in England.

I also think anyone on £30,000 will lose Tax Credits

I dont think there will be any changes to Child Benefit.

Maternity grants will be scrapped.

Fuel up by 2p a litre
Fags up 10p a pack
Alcohol up 5p

VAT will be up to 18.5 or 19% I think.

I didnt think VAT was allowed on "essential" living items, so cant see it being added to food..... however I would welcome VAT on crisps/biscuits/sweet/cakes/ready meals etc

VAT increases for sure.

Are they actually going to cut tax credits? Will my money stop?

I'm freaking out a bit here..

OH I think Scotland will lose out big time with defence cuts - either Kinloss or Lossie will go,it will bring that part of scotland to it's knees I should think.
Possibly a couple of Army places as well. The RAF will get a lot of cuts too, they won't cut Navy, it being the oldest of teh Armed forces, they won't cut the Army, public opinion won't let them. Eventually (10,15,20 years time) the RAF will be disbanded, or merged into the other 2 branches of Armed forces

This is going to sound so conceited, but they can cut my ctc, - DH earns over £30,000 and I get £10 a week. We are lucky we don't need it, I'd rather someone else got it.

I think they will cut the family elemet of TC straight away and phase out the other elements (childcare/child) for those over £25-30K over 5 years and maybe even change the Tc system. (surely even they can see that people can't just loose hundreds a month). I did read somewhere that things will be phased out not just stopped (but wouldn't suprise me if they did).

VAT definately will rise, maybe not to 20% though.

Fuel, fags, alcohol all up quite abit.

I don't think they will cut child benefit, heard Nick clegg has ruled that out along with another MP.

Income tax threshold up by £200.

So, given that I earn less than £20k, I'll not be affected?

They could treble the tax on fags/alcohol and I wouldn't care.

There's a direct link between cost and uptake of smoking at a young age.

If fags had been 50p each instead of 5p each when I was 15/16 no one of my generation would have bothered taking it up

I am a smoker, and trying to cut down and stop. The best thing for me would be a HUGE increase in the cost of fags and tobacco. I would LOVE to be able to go "no, i cant afford it" and the only way that will happen is if the prices go up by at LEAST 10p a pack. I pay just under £5 for a pack now, and I always said over £5 would mean NO MORE.

Alcohol - I dont drink, bar the odd malibu and coke once a month if im lucky, so they could easily hike up the price of alcohol too.

Fuel is the one thing I would rather they brought down rather than up, but I cant see it happening. We live in the Scottish Highlands and pay £1.24 a litre at the moment..... its madness as it is a 50mile round trip to the nearest homebase/tesco extra/argos etc

"So, given that I earn less than £20k, I'll not be affected?"

It's unlikely you'll be affected by CTC changes. But if you buy fuel or cigarettes or anything that attracts VAT then you'll be affected in other ways.

Not bothered about price increases on things I choose to buy/not buy.

I am only concerned about my incomings. My outgoings, I control.

DAnJARMouse I said to dh this am abou VAT on junk food. It might stop me indulging so much.

I also need to fill up the car so will do that today!

I think they will have to do cuts to CB/CTC etc gradually but possibly cutting the top end within 2-3 month.

Fags & alcohol a definate to go up

They should up cost of cigs and alcohol.
Stop all but the poorest over 60s getting cold weather payment, and free bus travel.

They will probably stop child trust funds & EMA for post 16s.

If they're going to put VAT up they should up it to 20%.

End to CB for all. Several families I know claimed it. Banked it for 18 years and then gave it to DC for their first car or to blow in their firts year at university. Those families didn't need it.

Also full council tax on second homes.....Infact find a way to tax holiday/second home owners more.

Yes I think eventually they will cut child benefit for 37,000 and above. just a total guess, but don't think that will be till next year at the earliest.

'"So, given that I earn less than £20k, I'll not be affected?"'

I don't think you will be affected now but think the Cons and Libs both dislike tax credits and so may dismantle them within a few years.

Actually, I think they need some serious reform wrt alcohol sales in addition to duty increase - minimum pricing, an end to 24-hour licensing, full ban on advertising before the watershed, etc.

What is really rubbish is that they go on income without looking at dependents etc - so a single person earning, say 30k, is treated the same as a family of 6 with a household income of 30k (as far as means testing goes), despite the standard of living being vastly different.

Expat - are you in Scotland?

The licensing reform came in on September 1st last year. The things you mentioned (bar the advertising pre-watershed) are now illegal already (Licensing Scotland Act 2005).