One thing I'm confident of is this will be the most significant budget for at least a generation (and/or the one in the Autumn), and will potentially be the most divisive in a long time, particularly going by rumblings in the wider Tory party.
I work from home but have not shouted at all for lockdowns.How about a 1p increase in income tax for those who have shouted the loudest for lockdowns i.e. those work from homers in secure jobs.
I have worked from home since September 2019 and will continue to do so for the foreseeable as my employer no longer has an office anywhere near my home. I am not making any extra savings from being made to work at home during the pandemic as I would be working from home regardless. When I did go to the office my season ticket cost between £1,300 & £1,400 and I rarely went out for lunch as I brought lunch with me to the office almost every day. So my travel costs were not as high as you were expecting and I am not making savings on lunch. My electricity bill has also gone up as I am at home all day!
That's pretty much my situation. Cost neutral in terms of saving from WFH and savings coming from everything being closed or banned under lockdown.
How about a 1p increase in income tax for those who have shouted the loudest for lockdowns i.e. those work from homers in secure jobs.
), I am actually a work from homer in a secure job but have been vehemently against it since last spring.
Not in my personal experience.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is unveiling the contents of his Budget in the House of Commons.
He is announcing the government's tax and spending plans for the year ahead, expected to focus on helping business and jobs through the pandemic and supporting the UK's long-term economic recovery.
Here is a summary of the main points, which are being updated as he speaks.
Coronavirus support
A number of spending commitments have already been announced. They include:
- Furlough to be extended until the end of September
- Government to continue paying 80% of employees' wages for hours they cannot work
- Employers to be asked to contribute 10% in July and 20% in August and September
- 600,000 more self-employed people will be eligible for help as access to grants is widened
- £20 uplift in Universal Credit to be extended for another six months
- Minimum wage to increase to £8.91 an hour from April.
State of the economy and public finances
- UK economy forecast to return to pre-Covid levels by middle of 2022
- Annual growth set to rebound by 4% this year, followed by 7.3% growth in 2022
- Unemployment expected to peak at 6.5% next year, lower than 11.9% previously predicted
- UK to borrow a peacetime record of £355bn this year.
- Borrowing to total £234bn in 2021-22
- Debt as a share of GDP to fall from 4.5% next year to 3.5% in 2022-23
Taxation
- No changes to rates of income tax, national insurance or VAT
- Personal income tax allowance to be frozen at £12,570 from 2022 to 2026
- Higher rate income tax threshold to be frozen at £50,270 from 2022 to 2026
- Corporation tax on company profits to rise from 19% to 25% in April 2023
- Rate to be kept at 19% for about 1.5 million smaller companies
Health and education
- £19m for domestic violence programmes, funding network of respite rooms
- £40m of funding for Thalidomide victims and lifetime support guarantee
The arts and sport
- £400m to help arts venues in England, including museums and galleries, re-open
- £300m recovery package for professional sport and £25m for grassroots football
Business, digital and science
- Incentive grants for apprenticeships to rise to £3,000 and £126 for traineeships
- VAT cut for hospitality firms to be maintained at 5% until September
- Interim 12.5% rate to apply for the following six months
- Business rates holiday for firms in England will continue from April until June
- £5bn in re-opening grants for non-essential businesses of up to £6,000 per premises.
Corporation tax is going up to 25% from 2023, although small businesses will keep the 19% rate, but no change for two years by the looks of things. The income tax threshold rises to £12,570 but then freezes until 2026, plus all the standard extensions to support speculated:
Budget 2021: Key points at-a-glance
Rishi Sunak has delivered his annual Budget in the House of Commons. Here's what you need to know.www.bbc.co.uk
Absolutely ludicrous.
I have to say that freezing at £12,500 and £50,000 would have been neater than £12,570 and £50,270.
Unfortunately there isn't much optimism/belief inflation will stay low, with markets and bond yields behaving recently in the belief inflation will pickup soon. How long a rise might last for though is unknown, but if it does go up the money printing certainly won't have helped.
Add me to the list of WFH'ers who has been shouting against lockdowns.Whilst I agree in taxing those who have shouted for lockdowns the loudest (completely unrealistic, but it is cathartic to imagine someone from the treasury trawling through social media and amending tax letters as they do it
I am resigned that my taxes will go up; obviously I have saved a lot of money from not doing all my usual commuting, events and travels in the past year, so financially I will be OK with that (and I know this is a very fortunate position) but I will never get that time back. That is far more important to me than money. I work to live life to do things and experience the world, not to sit at home counting banknotes in front if Netflix. We are going to have to think about starting a family next year, so I've lost a year of being able to do lots of the things I wanted to do before then, and it really grates with me. I know that sounds selfish, but only as selfish as those who have been overtly happy for people to have been robbed of their usual lives and freedoms for a year.
Some extra bank holidays would be nice, to be honest, which would do wonders for the travel and hospitality industries if they are timed for when all restrictions are gone in the summer. However, the fact that they affect the business and finance side of the economy means it won't happen.
The current massive bulge between 100k and 120k is just bizarre. There's no such thing as a "negative personal allowance", you'd just be nakedly making the tax above 100k regressive without even the current paper-thin justification. If it's desirable to raise higher rate tax to 50% then raise it to 50% and run that all the way through, but don't raise it 50%, pretend you didn't, and then give people a nifty little tax break over £150k
Maybe, but given that the £100k-£125k bulge is there and people affected can't really do much about it, for fear of being termed greedy, I don't think it is going to change ever. Let's remember that only something like 10% of the population are higher rate taxpayers, let alone affected by the £100k-£125k bulge.
What I just proposed would result in people between 100k and 120k paying a lot more tax overall, as I think they should. What really makes no sense is taxing marginal income for those people at a rather brutal 60%, and then only charging people earning 300k 45% on most of their income. I don't want lower taxes, I want higher but sensible progressive taxes. This messing around with allowances doesn't achieve any of that
Yes, part of the 'honesty' about tax that is needed is that the higher rate tax probably should be 50p in the £1 throughout but it has become politically impossible to actually implement that and changes can only be made by tinkering with allowances.
Funnily enough I was thinking the same. In the last couple of months pretty much every digital service I subscribe to have gone up. At the same time there does seem to be some price creep going on in the supermarkets, rail fares will be going up again, as I suspect will other public transport services. Even the local taxi firms have been nudging prices up. So expecting inflation to stay low is optimistic to say the least.
I was listening to a discussion about inflation on the radio a few days ago during which someone was suggesting inflation, as a lasting consequence of the current situation, could be up in double figures in another 10- 15 years time. He wasn’t expecting any immediate sudden rise, but did think that by the end of the decade inflation rates and interest rates could begin to rocket up as they did during the 1970’s.