The budget 2014

[VikkiMumsnet]

George Osborne is all set to deliver this year's budget on Wednesday 19th March.

Here's a useful link for what's expected to be covered. Headline issues are likely to include property tax and stamp duty, as well as an increase in the personal tax allowance (up to £10,000).

What do you want to see as part of the budget, and what are you dreading coming up? Share your thoughts below.

[mummymeister]

100% increase in duty on cigarettes, cigars and alcohol. reduction of overseas aid budget to cover the costs associated with this winter's weather. reduction of VAT to 10%. reduction in business rates to last rateable value. Vat threshold raised to £150K. but we will get the usual bland edge tinkering that one side will love and the other side will hate. 20 lashes to every politician who talks about "hardworking families"

[Isitmebut]

A tough one to get a head around, I remember the good old days when Chancellors gave a few £billion here, took a few £billion there, but netted out as roughly neutral. What is the annual budget deficit down to now, a £100 billion overspend, yet so many people still needing help as we emerge from the biggest recession for 80-odd years.

In 1997 the Housing Stamp Tax was a flat 1%, I’d agree that there will be help for family homes up to say £250k, but as we now have decent housing transaction traction, I think this could/should wait until next year, in case the market stalls on higher interest rates - and those that need to sell, are having trouble encouraging buyers. We still desperately need to build more homes, but I can’t see what else he could do in a new budget to increase the current build rate, other than financially encourage local authority and/or social homes associations to break ground.

The £10k start rate for tax target I think is already ‘baked in’ a previous budget for this April, so probably too early for more graduated rises, over the next few years.

There have been so many measures from 2010 and yet to fully feed through into the economy, I wouldn’t be surprised if due to still sizable annual spending deficit, there wasn’t any bum grabbing headline policies next week - finger crossed though.

[Contrarian78]

Transferrable tax allowance betweeen married couples with children;

Final Salary public sector pensions to be capped at national average wage;

The restoration of the contributory link between what's paid in and what can be claimed in respect of ALL benefits;

Vouchers for 70% of the value for those opting out of state services (NHS/Education);

Fixed-term tennancies for social housing (five years?);

Increased security of tenure for those renting in the private sector;

Increased duty on cigarettes/alcohol;

Reduced/Frozen duty on fuel (and a law that prevents anyone other than refineries from purchasing crude oil); and

A law that prevents companies from generating and selling electricity in the domestic market.

Not all budget related but you get the idea........

[Contrarian78]

......oh, and the introduction of a "flat tax" (which would include NI - which should just be scrapped)

[ihategeorgeosborne]

Remove the cliff edge on stamp duty for homes just over the threshold, so if e.g. you buy a home for 275k, you pay 1% stamp duty up to 250k and then 3% on the remaining 25k, as opposed to the current system of paying 3% on the full whack.

Raise the threshold at which 40% tax is paid to 45k. I think UKIP are putting this in their manifesto:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10695004/Ukip-to-fight-2015-election-on-pledge-to-raise-40p-tax-threshold-to-45000.html

Make the cuts to child benefit fair.

Merge tax and NI and then everyone knows exactly how much income tax they are paying.

[longfingernails]

Above all, reduce the structural deficit. Beyond that, cuts in national insurance, and petrol duty, funded by cuts in unemployment benefits and overseas aid. More money for free schools, paid for by slashing funding to local education authorities. Cuts in corporation tax and business rates, funded by scrapping the business department. Cuts in green taxes, funded by scrapping large parts of the Environment department. Increase in alcohol duties when alcohol is sold in shops, with cuts in alcohol duty for pubs, in a revenue neutral way.

[TalkinPeace]

merge ni into tax all on a cumulative basis
esp class 2 and class 4

add another 10 bands to the top of council tax
abolish ALL council tax discounts on band F or above properties

abolish non dom status

force LLPs to have uk taxpayers as their beneficial owners

make stamp duty stepped rather than cliff edge

align investment and earnings income tax rates

[TheHoneyBadger]

don't let married couples transfer tax allowances please. why should single parents subsidise stay at home mums? why should a married man be able to earn 20k without paying any tax at all? it's bad enough that a single mother paying HRT has lost child benefit when a couple next door are earning 30k each and keep it without this nonsense.

[TheHoneyBadger]

the household with a sahp is already making a huge saving by not having to pay for childcare. 25% of family households are single parents - those working only have the usual tax free allowance AND have to pay childcare. if married couples transfer tax allowances then to make it fair and equitable single parents would have to be given double the tax allowance also.

[HerrenaHarridan]

This thread makes me sad.

Cut over seas aid, cut benefits, cut local education funding aid...

What about all the money wasted by the military?

What about the huge subsidies received by BAE systems even though they are a war mongering multi billion pound corporation?

What about the trident nuclear weapons system?

What about investing in making a future we want to live in by reducing our dependency on diminishing resources?

What about investing in rehabilitation of offenders and cutting costs of spending on inadequate prisons?

What about investing in early years intervention and creating opportunities for teenagers to reach for so they don't end up so disillusioned with the shit they are due to inherit?

[TheHoneyBadger]

no no no! that doesn't win votes herrena!

you just want to make middle class mummies happy by letting their family (already better off than most) have an extra tax break. oh and punish those bad smokers and drinkers and sick people and single mums and well everyone except us really....

you certainly don't want to make corporate giants actually pay taxes or banks pay back the billions they were bailed out with or stop pouring billions of pounds into blowing the fuck out of foreign countries.

[TheHoneyBadger]

the austerity measures are like having a house that has the lights on 24hrs a day, has a gold plated roof and your household has five cars on the driveway and you decide that the way to save money is to cut back on bread and potatoes and never overfill the kettle.

[TheGreatHunt]

Stop tinkering and using fiscal drag yo move more people into the higher rate tax band.

As for "finding" £1bn for infrastructure - rubbish. He's just forcing departments to make further cuts by shifting pension contributions their way. It's one big merry go round of money.

Decent wages for NHS workers. They work harder than 11% MPs.

[TheGreatHunt]

Also strip out ridiculous pseudo market type principles out of the NHS. Hospitals don't compete with each other like supermarkets so don't waste £millions setting up fake "markets" and pricing mechanism and the associate bureaucracy. It is not proven to work ffs because it doesn't.

[longfingernails]

TheGreatHunt health markets are proven to work - in Germany, for example (and in countries adopting the 'Bismarck model' of healthcare more generally).

[Viviennemary]

I think ending lifelong tenancies for council housing.
Raising the personal allowance to £15,000
Raising the rate when people start paying tax at 40% to at least £55,000
Stop bankers bonuses.

[TheHoneyBadger]

so tax cuts and turfing people out of council houses.

that's a budget plan is it? and how do bankers bonus' pay for the tax cuts and finding housing for the people turfed out of council houses?

[HerrenaHarridan]

Hear hear for the nhs staff

[HerrenaHarridan]

But definitely not with you on putting a stop to corporations laughing at the idea of paying tax, I just couldn't bear the puppy dog eyes if we made multi billion dollar corporations a bit poorer... Don't worry though if I slash benefits for disabled people we will still be able to afford our business lunches and beautiful stationary

[TalkinPeace]

Corporation tax is a trivial and largely avoidable part of an international company's tax bill

going at it headlong will just make the tax industry richer, not any government

hence why LLPs and CFCs are the correct targets

[ShadowOfTheDay]

sort out stamp duty....

3% on houses over £250k when the average price round here has approached that now is stagnating the housing market - why move when you will pay out £7.5K tax just for buying a house of similar value to your own......

[TheGreatHunt]

Really longfingernails can you show me some evidence please? Am genuinely interested.

[TheHoneyBadger]

we massively need measures to narrow the gap between rich and poor. i don't see anything other than inevitable collapse if that isn't tackled. you can't get blood out of a stone and if your masses can't afford to spend and are already maxed out on debt then it's stalemate. taking more and more and more away from those without just compounds the whole thing.

for as long as mr x is making one million pound a year at the top of the company and 70% of it's employees are making 10k there is clearly not enough circulation of resources going on. add to that that the state is having to top up the salaries of that 70% with tax credits and mr x isn't even paying tax and the whole thing goes to shit.

[motown3000]

TheHoneyBadger. X might be using clever accountants to reduce their tax amount payable, but that money will go on Eating out , buying new Cars employing staff at their home and so on. It is known the top 1% of the country paid nearly 30% of all income tax last year, how much do they pay in VAT each year Stamp Duty E.T.C. how much did they contribute to employment in terms of needing staff to serve them at Restaurants , service their cars , domestic staff at home Nannies Cleaners, Gardeners .

Many of these domestic staff benefit from "Cash" so they can "Rightly" claim Help from Government benefits to give them a " Decent life" .Taxing Wealthy People more just takes Money out of the Economy , the people that will suffer will be Cleaners/ Waiters Gardeners, as the Rich found ways to pay " Mansion Taxes" by cutting hours of domestic staff and eating out less reducing "Pay Packets" of the poorest workers.