Topic: 2021 budget

[PaulF]

Not seen much leaked so far, which is quite unusual. What are you people expecting to see?

[west_london_red]

Lots of tax rises and freezes or reductions in allowances.

[killer-heels]

Council Tax reduction.

[west_london_red]

Council Tax reduction.

 

I can’t see anything being cut other then extending the stamp duty holiday - gotta perpetuate that housing bubble!

[Circa1892]

Fuck all of use with these c*nts.

Honestly - been working with them on the day job. No talent, no principles, no imagination. Useless set of charlatans. They’re malicious, incompetent and thick.

And that dickhead with his weird LinkedIn chancellor efforts. Biggest smarmy useless shit of the lot.

[Commie Bobbie]

Not seen much leaked so far, which is quite unusual. What are you people expecting to see?

Stealth Taxes.

They'll put taxes on online purchases, which will go down like a bucket of cold puke.

[Zeb]

Think Sunak will make lots of noises but whether any tax rises will be symbolic from him, and a lot punted onto local government instead... Would guess UC extra £20 extended for another year and legacy benefits told they'll be moved over on schedule (which leaves many worse off even with the £20 p/w extra). Furlough extended further into the year but a lower rate seems Tory. Possibly the fragments of an idea to help freelancers. Suspect large part of additional spending will go to regions for 'covid recovery' in some form of 'open up the high street' plan which crosses over into post-Brexit support.

edit: court stenographer on the budget, 2 out of 5 right heh.

Furlough for employed and self-employed is to be extended to end of Sept, as I mentioned on 19 Feb. As important is that hundreds of thousands of newly self-employed who have not been eligible for the self-employment income support scheme will now be eligible for it because  they will now be able to claim it on basis of 2019-20 tax returns. So at least some of millions of freelancers and self-employed who fell through the safety net will at least for a few months receive significant income support (up to £2500 per month). More details in budget tmrw

Pesto

[Commie Bobbie]

Furlough extended til September according to the Guardian.

Are they thinking that any timetable of reopening could be subject to change?

[Zeb]

Timetable has flexibility built into it, yeah. Think September because it's the shortest reasonable time it could be extended rather than looking a fool having to rush it back in ahead of an Autumn statement.

[Eeyore]

Depends on how Sunak sees this. Is it a budget to stabilise the finances or is it an opportunity to further his prospects of succeeding Johnson.

[killer-heels]

Nice to see the corporation tax hike.

[gazzalfc]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56266773

No major surprises there. Corporation tax rises will piss off a few tory donors but I'm sure the stamp duty holiday extension will offset that.

The rise for contactless payments to £100 will be nice to thieves and fraudsters.

 

[PaulF]

Nice to see the corporation tax hike.

It won't hit Amazon or google though.

[Andy82lfc]

I heard that the corporation tax hike won’t come in until before the next election, is that true or not?

[TSC]

I heard that the corporation tax hike won’t come in until before the next election, is that true or not?

2023 I think. Cynic may see it reducing a year later before election.

[PaulF]

I heard that the corporation tax hike won’t come in until before the next election, is that true or not?

Not sure where it is in the election cycle, but 2023 I belive (as TSC says too).
And 19% up to 50K profit still, only the full 25% at 250K and tapered in between.

--Edit-- so buy shares in accountants that specialise in reducing tax liabilities for corps.

[Zeb]

It's another £15bn in cuts in there, lot to be delivered by local government. WTC one off payment is good, in its way, but shows what a pisstake the excuses to legacy benefit claimants was. 'It's too complex'. Aye, right you are then. UC increase being only another 6 months seems daft at every level. Still haven't seen anything to suggest freeports are worth doing, at least not as a country - will benefit an area at expense of others is general view.

Course he gets several chances to correct any 'errors' ahead of an election but seems everyone is currently staked on a quick recovery and whistling at some of the longer term problems. Like council finances, university finances, social care, housing and rents...

[TSC]

FT calling Sunak out on his ‘levelling up’ agenda when ‘priority’ measures are aimed at Tory controlled councils, including his own.

[PaulF]

Still haven't seen anything to suggest freeports are worth doing, at least not as a country - will benefit an area at expense of others is general view.

Would you like to hazzard a guess at what percentage of freeports are built in marginal Tory areas?
What's that? the 9 key is stuck on your keyboard?

[TSC]

90% of towns funds go to Tory controlled constituencies.  Surprising that.

[west_london_red]

90% of towns funds go to Tory controlled constituencies.  Surprising that.

That’s a lie....






It’s 88.8%.

[Dull Tools]

Nice to see the corporation tax hike.

Corporation Tax is a quick win for him. It is a bit pointless really as raises barely any tax but is very popular with voters. Think it only raises about 8% of government taxes.

It is a bit dangerous doing it in my opinion when you are trying to encourage businesses to stay here/relocate here after Brexit.

[west_london_red]

Corporation Tax is a quick win for him. It is a bit pointless really as raises barely any tax but is very popular with voters. Think it only raises about 8% of government taxes.

It is a bit dangerous doing it in my opinion when you are trying to encourage businesses to stay here/relocate here after Brexit.

It’s not even that, business have so much warning they will just pay as much tax as they can now while the rates are lower and pay less in the future when they go up.

[Thepooloflife]

90% of towns funds go to Tory controlled constituencies.  Surprising that.

Where's that info from ?

[PaulF]

Was there much effort to reduce tax liability last time corporation tax hit those rates?  It's probably not a big enough hike for many to leave the country or rearrange their tax affairs.

[west_london_red]

Where's that info from ?

I’ve seen it a few times and it mentioned on LBC. 45 towns are getting money, 40 of them have Tory MPs.

Not even trying to pretend it isn’t what it is.

[Wabaloolah]

I will benefit from the rise in personal allowances from £12500 to £12570 and a slight uplift in the 40% rate next year and then fuck all increase until 2026!

He dare not actually increase income tax as he would be slated by his own backbenchers, so he does it by the backdoor and bring a million of the lowest paid into paying tax.

He's a tory all right he's not a nice Tory, not an acceptable  face of toryism. He is what he is and that's a Tory c*nt.

[Circa1892]

He’s the worst fucking Tory.

I don’t really understand how they’ve managed to kill the Treasury as an entity though? Used to basically be the department ministers couldn’t railroad, now it sets up the pork barrel farm for payouts to Tory marginals and spends most of its time doing flashy publicity for that dickhead.

[Eeyore]

FT calling Sunak out on his ‘levelling up’ agenda when ‘priority’ measures are aimed at Tory controlled councils, including his own.

To be fair it is levelling up. The poorer Tory councils will now get a bit closer to the richer Tory councils.

[thaddeus]

The Tories are forever announcing tax cuts to great fanfare.  It's their thing.

Now comes a time when they might actually need to raise taxes (debatable - depending on how you view 'national debt' - but Sunak made a big point of saying he thinks we need to pay back the debt) and they got in a tizzy about raising the corporation tax from 19% to 25%.  25% still being the lowest in the G7, I know that because Sunak mentioned it about a dozen times, and even that had to come hand in hand with a host of tax breaks for businesses.

My council are raising the Council Tax by 5% and I understand they're still going to be bankrupt without a significant amount of extra government money (an issue that wasn't so much as mentioned by Sunak).  That tax rise is one step removed from the Tories so they can do what Bozo did when asked about it by Starmer and finger point at a selection of Labour councils.  My council is Tory, for the record.

Freezing the tax free allowance is effectively a tax rise assuming we have any kind of inflation in the next five years.  Again though, it had to be disguised.

Sunak also cowardly avoided the elephant in the room that is the pensions triple lock.

Given such paltry potential for extra tax income, the drag of Brexit and the Tories making a big deal about the national debt then I assume we will all be reliving the past decade of austerity and reductions in public services.  This current government have shown they're happy to deliver bare faced lies so we'll keep hearing that they're "the party of public services" while those services crumble and privatise around us.

[thaddeus]

It’s not even that, business have so much warning they will just pay as much tax as they can now while the rates are lower and pay less in the future when they go up.

One of the contributors on Radio 5 said it would be a "system shock" for businesses having "an overnight rise in corporation tax of 6% in two years".  I suppose he was technically correct that one day it will be 19% and then overnight it will become 25% but the night in question isn't for more than 750 days...

[PaulF]

I’ve seen it a few times and it mentioned on LBC. 45 towns are getting money, 40 of them have Tory MPs.

Not even trying to pretend it isn’t what it is.

It's obviously not that high, but there are a lot more tory towns that not, so you'd not expect it to be 50/50 to start with.
Fiscal drag, and raiding NI is a fairly standard tactic for raising taxes. If you believe there is a need to raise more money, and it seems very likely given how much we had to borrow, then fiscal drag doesn't seem to drastic.
Easy to say raise corporation tax, but that will encourage a degree of leaving these shores and impacting pensions. Though I feel in times of great need there is probably room for more of it.

I can't say if we 'need' to raise tax and pay back the deficit. Obviously growing the economy is a good way to raise tax, (maybe by lowering corporation tax !). But you'd have to leave it to expert economists to define what we need to do.  I believe though the quote is "Ask 3 economists and you'll get four opinions"

Paul

[Red-Soldier]

I’ve seen it a few times and it mentioned on LBC. 45 towns are getting money, 40 of them have Tory MPs.

Not even trying to pretend it isn’t what it is.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced £1bn towards 45 areas of England as part of his Budget.

The list of places receiving money from the Towns Fund is dominated by the north west, Yorkshire and the Midlands.

The government said the money would help to "level up" towns and aid recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Shadow work and pensions secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said there was "just no logic to where that money goes other than through a political ends".

Mr Sunak told the House of Commons the deals would be "from Castleford to Clay Cross, Rochdale to Rowley Regis and Whitby to Wolverhampton".

Workington in Cumbria will receive £23m, which the local council said would support projects including a sports village and innovation centre.

Mike Johnson, Conservative deputy leader of Allerdale Borough Council, called it "absolutely fantastic news" and said the authority would work to "bring these projects to life and make the town an even better place to live, work and visit".

There are 45 towns named but as some cover multiple constituencies, I've counted 56 constituencies that benefit.

Forty-seven are Conservative constituencies - including 14 gained from Labour at the 2019 election plus quite a few more recent Conservative gains, while nine are Labour constituencies.

Fifty-three of the constituencies voted "leave" at the EU referendum. Three voted "remain".

In a way that's not very surprising - Labour seats and "remain" areas are concentrated in cities - but it's still pretty striking.

New town deals and amount per region

North East: Middlesbrough; Thornaby-On-Tees - £46m

North West: Preston; Workington; Bolton; Cheadle; Carlisle; Leyland; Southport; Staveley; Rochdale - £211m

Yorkshire and the Humber: Wakefield; Whitby; Scarborough; Grimsby; Castleford; Goldthorpe; Scunthorpe; Morley; Stocksbridge - £199m

East Midlands: Newark; Clay Cross; Skegness; Mablethorpe; Boston; Lincoln; Northampton; Mansfield - £175m

West Midlands: Wolverhampton; Kidsgrove; Rowley Regis; Smethwick; West Bromwich; Burton-upon-Trent; Nuneaton - £155m

East of England: Lowestoft; Colchester; Stevenage; Great Yarmouth; Ipswich; Milton Keynes - £148m

South East: Crawley; Margate - £43m

South West: Swindon; Bournemouth - £41m

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-56271275

[thejbs]

A fifth SEISS grant for the self employed to cover May to September but is calculated based 80% of your earnings over THREE months... and it’s taxable. Say what you want about them, but the Tories are consistently Tory.

[TSC]

So Institute for Fiscal studies has said the budget is implausible and undeliverable.

[Circa1892]

So Institute for Fiscal studies has said the budget is implausible and undeliverable.

As I'm sure half of HMT did...

[Ashburton]

So Institute for Fiscal studies has said the budget is implausible and undeliverable.

Was always going to happen due to their overly enthusiastic announcements for Corp Tax.  We've seen the NHS pay announcement come through today because it was judged the budget was too miserly, even by some of the economic hawks.

To some extent I do understand because in the long term it's pretty dangerous to overspend in the current climate, but not completing a recovery if anything is more dangerous and it's a fine line to draw.  Presumably the Corporation Tax announcement was to keep the bond markets happy for the foreseeable but it'll do little to offer most of the most vulnerable any assistance once we move from a furlough situation to beyond.   Think it's going to be important to back this up with a big splash next budget for infrastructure spending and perhaps he's keen to keep that in his pocket for closer to elections.

[Zeb]

The Towns' Fund is the big infrastructure spending. Tories are still taking baby steps back to economic orthodoxy after three high profile adventures in bunkum these past 40 years.

[TSC]

The Towns' Fund is the big infrastructure spending. Tories are still taking baby steps back to economic orthodoxy after three high profile adventures in bunkum these past 40 years.

It’s strange that Sunak’s constituency’Richmond’ sits in priority 1 (highest) for receipt of the dosh, while a lot of northern towns sit within lower levels.

Guess the poor folks of Richmond need all the dosh they can get.

[Zeb]

It’s strange that Sunak’s constituency’Richmond’ sits in priority 1 (highest) for receipt of the dosh, while a lot of northern towns sit within lower levels.

Guess the poor folks of Richmond need all the dosh they can get.

As with everything else they've done the past decade, I suppose one of the few frames to see it in which makes sense is that division between who they think it's worth sheltering from economic problems and who they don't. Towns fund has been a mess since MEN's Jen Williams first stood up in a press conference a couple of years back and said the GM allocation made absolutely no sense unless it was based on having a Tory MP/being a Tory target seat. Johnson called her 'cynical' and got the audience to laugh at her.