http://newsthump.com/2011/03/2...ng-what-theyre-told/

Hardly going to notice if they stick anything on anything are we?  Seeing as how every bloody thing goes up every other week anyway!    Except the wages of course .......

Looking at it, there's little I disagree with.  Of course, the devil will be in the detail.

4p per litre fuel duty rise due in April postponed
Additional 1p to be cut from fuel duty from 6pm
Fuel duty escalator scrapped
£2bn tax rise on oil firms to pay for fuel changes

All good, at a time when the motorist is being crucified from all angles.
 
Air Passenger Duty rise delayed by one year

Probably could have been introduced this year, I don't see air passengers as particularly hard done by

Alcohol duty frozen - but previous government's tax rises will go ahead
Going to further clobber the pubs but then the pubs aren't charities and don't really cover the cost of alcohol related damage etc

Further £600 increase in personal tax allowance from April 2012
Good

Corporation tax cut by 1%
Bad, corp tax doesn't need cutting, it's been cut consistently over the last 30 years by Labour and the Tories and where's it left us?  A nation in chronic debt.  The savings only end up in the bank accounts of the fat cats.

Financial help for 10,000 first-time buyers to get on property ladder
Bad, let the housing market find its natural level.  We don't need incentives to kick start a market that is still over inflated.

Forecast for how much UK economy will grow in 2011 downgraded
Bad, but that's slash and burn for you, entirely to be expected

Plans to merge tax and National Insurance
Could work, could be a disaster, who knows at the current time without further details?

I agree with everything you've said, Carnelian. Watching it and hearing and reading the aftermath people are pretty much saying the same thing. In terms of delivering a budget to promote growth, they seem to have done it. The focus has been on SME's and it's those who I think will benefit the most.

One comment I've read though is despite the additional £600 in personal allowance, due to inflation this will only equate to approximately £45 per person.

Also, they mentioned a 45 per mile fuel expense relief for employees - this sounds like the private car figure - anyone know what the company car figure is?

The fuel thing could have gone further....diesel has gone up nearly 60% in the last three and a half years....1p down will make no difference at all.

And that's if the garages comply.

The swines.

oh, I quite like this, I might be able to afford to buy somewhere

Don't why the Oil and Gas companies have been clobbered for £2bn to raise funds but the bankers were only clobbered for £500m in the bankers bonus tax in the emergency budget last year.

I listened to the MD of Barrats this morning and, although it's in his interest,  the scheme sounds promising. It was done before very successfully.

The smaller private ones probs won't be able to afford it ...

Im so excited, i dont know what im going to spend all my petrol savings on

Other than a desperate need to clutch onto some "good" news, I really don't understand why there's been so much fuss over this 1p cut.

Firstly, it doesn't come close to recouping the VAT increase at the start of the year.
Secondly, the tax on the oil companies is being increased to pay for that 1p duty cut: does anyone really think they won't just pass this back onto the consumer?
Finally, although there will be no duty increases this year, there will be two increases in 2012 instead - so you'll just be clobbered even harder next year to make up for a smearing of jam today...

I said earlier that SME's have had the best outcome....but thinking about it, it will only be for those SME's who sell trade. Anyone selling direct to a consumer market needs to rely on consumers/joe public having the money to buy from them in the first place, and as today's news has more or less ignored the consumer it's still gonna be a tough market out there methinks.

There can't be economic growth based on the back of a few quid and some new biz start up incentives from the government. Businesses need to trade. But I suppose the Tories stance will be they funded the projects, it's up to the owners to make the business work.

I see more hashtag fails on the horizon....

I agree with Eugene's post above also the £10,000 to help first time buyers has been done before, this time you only get that help if you buy a new build which most first time buyers may not be able to afford even with the help given,it would have been better not to put that restriction on first time buyers and apply the same to all of them wether it was a new build or not as the case may be...

Karma
I agree with everything you've said, Carnelian. Watching it and hearing and reading the aftermath people are pretty much saying the same thing. In terms of delivering a budget to promote growth, they seem to have done it. The focus has been on SME's and it's those who I think will benefit the most.

One comment I've read though is despite the additional £600 in personal allowance, due to inflation this will only equate to approximately £45 per person.

Also, they mentioned a 45 per mile fuel expense relief for employees - this sounds like the private car figure - anyone know what the company car figure is?

---

Don't get me wrong Karma, I'm just responding to the brief overview as given in that bulletted summary.

I regard the cut in corp tax as bad.  I suppose the Tories like to present a narrative of Labour continually bashing business because it suits the general perception of their supporters.  In fact, we had the same thing from Labour.  Labour reduced corp tax, the Tories reduced corp tax.  Since the 1970s corp tax has been cut and cut again and the same things said each time.  Yet here we are with the nation's finances wrecked.  The money just ends up in the bank accounts of the fatcats, property speculators, Porsche dealerships and back slapping bankers. 

Today we find out that Osborne has cut the winter fuel allowance by £100, and chose to omit from his speech, which I don't need to tell you, will clobber the poor elderly.  Raised the pension age.  Wages are static, inflation is high and erroding wages and saving, unemployment rising, the petrol cut doesn't offset the petrol increases. 

The predictions for growth have been revised downwards on three occasions, and that's really the big one.  Slash and burn is kicking the life out of the recovery that Labour had started to deliver and this morning I've just heard that tiresome old chestnut "Labour maxxed out the credit cards", from Osborne.  A great soundbite for those who only want a simple narrative for the economy, but the truth is, UK bonds were over subscribed before Labour left office.  If other nations want to buy our bonds, they have confidence in the British economy, despite the armageddon spin of the Tory party.

Karma - re your question on cars. The rates of 25p for the first 10,000 miles a year with any excess at 45p (40p to 5 April) are the rates to be used by employers to pay employess when the employee uses their private car for business mileage. This covers the running costs including fuel and car depreciation.

If an employee has a company car, then in order not to get taxed on the fuel benefit, it tends to be cheaper for the employee to reimburse the company for the private fuel used. There are different rates depending on fuel type and cc, and these rates tend to get changed every few months. The current rates from 1 March are:

Engine size	Petrol	Diesel	LPG
1400cc or less	14p	13p	10p
1401cc to 2000cc	16p	13p	12p
Over 2000cc	23p	16p	17p

If you want to work out your taxable car benefit and your taxable fuel benefit, HMRC provides a calculator. This may not have been updated for the 2011/12 tax year.

Thanks El Loro, but I didn't know I had queried taxation on company vehicles or using your own car for your employer's operations.  Anyway, thanks, it doesn't apply to me as I have no job or income at the moment.  Frittering away my modest life savings because I was stupid enough to try and save for a modest deposit on a starter home and therefore I'm too rich to get benefits.

One thing I've learnt over the last year is it's a waste of time having aspirations in this country - as you're better off spending it all in the bookies or whatever your poison happens to be and then claiming benefits.

Carnelian, I was replying to your post this morning, but re-reading it I realise that you had copied Karma's query.So I've edited my post to read Karma instead of you 

Carnelian I thought yesterday was the budget he should have mentioned this in his budget if this is true he is very sneaky,it will be the start of phazing it out altogether ,labour did warn us they would do this but Cameron denied it would happen .. what next.. pensioners free bus passes taken away from them