Be Excellent To Each Other

So, what do we reckon's going to happen today with "the most important budget for 40 years"? I suspect not a great deal, to be honest, but here's some thoughts (some have been subliminally picked up from the radio, I suspect):

Booze duty will go up a fair bit (the recent calls for minimum pricing will be an excuse, I think)

Fuel duty will go up a few pence. We all got used to 120p a litre last year, and they're still a ways off, so they can squeeze some cash out that way without us getting too upset because, hey, it's still cheaper than it was.

Child benefit will be withdrawn for people over a certain income. (Mrs C said she heard this on the radiobox - sounds a good idea, and is well overdue. Why isn't child benefit means tested already?)

Some form of tax rise for some of the "well off", whatever they are. (I think I heard Nick Robinson mention somethign to this effect this morning, and it will only apply to those in six figure salaries plus.)

Car tax rises will be introduced a bit quicker.


Corporation tax won't go back up, not yet, despite the massive hole in the public finances that needs plugging and won't be covered by any amount of "efficiency savings". And given that level of debt that they need to reassure the markets about, I'm not sure we're going to see much in the way of good deeds for the less well off this year.

To be honest, he's got a tough job this time. He needs to do something to promote the recovery, but he also needs to show the markets that he's going to get a grip on the level of debt (which will need some fairly badass tax rises and or spending cuts to sort out in any reasonable time frame) - only he can't do that too soon as it'll fuck the recovery. And he's likely only got another year in office at most anyway.

Any other ideas?

I really doubt that. No matter how rich people are, that has the air of 'taking the money away from the kiddlies' about it, and there are much easier things to target.

I'd like to see a 45% band over 100k, or something with similar effect, but I very much doubt Darling has the balls.

If it's anything like Mr Brown's budgets, we will have to wait until someone goes through the hefty tome rather than rely on what was said in the chamber or made the headlines of the 6 o'clock news.*

* Labour MPs who cheered the doubling of tax for the poorest: shame on you.

Something about stamp duty. Stamps will be a bit cheaper, maybe.

I wonder if it will bear any relation to the odd 'mini-budget' pre-budget report from the end of last year.

I don't remember that at all. I suspect not though, as I'd guess that had some things in it that would cost the government money. And I'm not seeing them spending anything this year.

What odds will you give me on Mr Darling saying that there will be 'no return to boom and bust'?

I think we pay far too much tax on booze as it is. If you buy a pint in teh pub over a third of it is tax.

It is killing off the pubs as it is.

I think the government is right, and in fact, they should tax it *more*.

Indeed. Alcohol should only be for the rich. The poor people can't handle their liquor.

I see.

Yes. What Kovacs wants is free alcohol for tramps, paid for by teh taxpayer! Its an outrage!!1

Today I think I'll have a shit day, get home at midnight writing a load of press releases and articles that will never get properly released by my firm, or when they do, it will be after every other firm has released theirs meaning that mine don't get noticed, get spoken to like shit by my boss, decide to give up on my job and then realise there is nowhere to move to due to the Unprecedented Financial Armageddon (TM).

Same as most days then.

Why? it puts the price of beer up, people don't go out, the pubs shut. We should be supporting the local pubs and businesses.

I belive Camra are campaiging to keep the duty as it is.

There has to be a better way to control the mindles masses that drink far too much, rather than hut teh average person who likes a social drink.

*gets off soap box*

Hang on - you're Alistair Darling?

nah I don't smoke

Any good news will have already be announced.

Smallish bad news like duty rises announced at the despatch box.

Big bad news (tax going up etc) will not be announced and hidden in the small print as per the fucking usual tactic copied straight from the disingenuous twat in #10.

Being slightly less cynical

Above inflation rises in fuel and alcohol duties
VAT to go back up to on Jan 1st as planned, but past 17.5%.
New top rate of tax announced - doesn't matter, they are all non-dom anyway but it sounds good.
Corp tax up a bit, maybe 1%.
NI ceiling up a bit, past inflation to hide that he is catching more.

Nor do I. You seem to have missed the point.

Heh. 93 bananas.

...and the Treasury doesn't get the revenue.

Whilst the Laffer Curve is a heck of a simplification, there is an argument that we don't know what level of taxation will maximise income, and that too much can be counterproductive.

Wank tax

But those businesses want to poison people with alcohol, they must be restricted!!!



If the person likes a social drink occasionally, a few pence on a pint isn't going to bother him, is it!

I am sure the government knows what they are doing on this, it's based on decades of sound policy.

And of course, it's the binge drinkers that are keeping most pubs in business, especially the ones in cities with astronomical rent.

I appear to have...

http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=302689

Why camra think we pay to much bear tax as it is.

HANDS OFF MY BEAR, Alistair Darling!

Kovacs' typing is a constant delight.

EDIT: A tax on typos!

doh!!

THAT IS WHY I'M VOTING CONSERVATIVE AT THE NEXT ELECTION.

I would be buggered then

What, the tax is collected by your rugby mates?

SODOMY TAX!

Just when you thought Labour couldn't screw us even more...

Let the bears pay the bear tax, I pay the homer tax.

This will be my 10th budget in this job, and it is very hard to get excited about the budget anymore. The news tonight will be 'x'p on a pint, 'x'p on fags, but these have very limited impact compared to the devil in the detail in the press notices, consultation documents and technical notes. Half of which we'll research, review, consider and report on, and they'll come to nothing.

Without commenting on specific issues, the problem with this, and previous governments has been their aims of social engineering through the tax system, which never seems to go any further than the initial tax treatment. The one I saw this week which made me laugh is this £5,000 subsidy for electric cars. Which don't exist. I'll give odds that when they do exist, the subsidy will quietly disappear. A few years ago they made low emission cars exempt from PAYE - the threshold was so low that no such cars existed for 3 years in the mainstream, and when cars started hitting it the threshold dropped. Therefore todays front page reporting will be something like '£100m available for electric cars'. If 10% of that is successfully claimed I'll eat my hat.

You know that Kalmar owns, like, ten, right?

None that are eligible for the £5k, though.

-edit- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8001254.stm

Great, so not only was it nothing more than a headline-grabbing piece of fluff, but there's now no incentive to bring anything to market for a couple of years as everyone will be waiting for their handout. Good work.

I'd expect them to arrive sooner than that, but you're right to be cynical - they'll be as slow as possible in "approving" particular models for eligibility, and once the initial grant money is gone, that will be it.

On the other hand, several of my customers were able to take advantage of the previous scheme, Powershift grants, which were worth several thousand pounds off a new EV (bringing it to the same price as a diesel model, for example).

Be quick if you want one..

It's going to be great when they finally do push a staple-income tax beyond whatever the critical point is and suddenly the revenue drops right off. Let's be honest, much as they go on about taxing to reduce consumption, they assume it'll go on forever.

Like the housing and money markets.

The news yesterday was talking about a 45% income tax rate above £150k, but "experts" had said that it won't work because no-one who earns that much pays tax on it anyway; they need to get this touted clampdown sorted first. After which people will take pay cuts/shuffle their remuneration rather than pay the tax.

They can stop taxing me now. A man can only take so much, you know. I'll stop spending in protest.

This might seem a strange question.

Why do they have to put up taxes each year?

I do wonder how this expected plan of "fuck everyone with tax" and "ruin the public services further" is supposed to fix the economy; creaming even more off the top and leaving everyone unable to spell their own names while they sit in corridors waiting for treatment doesn't seem conducive to consumer spending.Same reason businesses have to show organic growth above expectations - people are idiots that can't help themselves. It's the free, democratic way. What are you, some kind of terrorist?

Again true. What happens when there's such a grant available? The manufacturers of the eligible products keep the price high and cream off the grant, so it's not really saving the buyer much money.

When the grant ends, the price bump kills demand and the manufacturer decides it isn't profitable any more and decides not to play, cancels the product.

Same thing just happened with PV solar and the grants for that.

They should spend all the money on charging points in towns IMHO, and do that now.

I'm also looking forward to seeing how the extra numbers of jobless caused by a civil service cull will help matters.


That and everything gets more expensive.

nah!!

Just why can't we pay the same levels of tax as last year?

That is a good question. The answer is of course... they don't.

Income tax has been pretty stable for a while and usually goes down for the average Joe.

I am sure that they rasie other taxes such as road tax.. etc. (and the state of our roads are getting worse)

Except for council tax, fuel duty, booze duty, fag duty and so on.

Isn't duty charged as a fixed price rather than a percentage? If so, that would explain why it needs to be put up all the time.

The problem is that we can't really discuss healthcare as anyone who ventures away from a tax-payer funded free-at-point-of-use NHS is immediately branded as a Dickensian villian who laughs as poor people die of the pox. Which is a shame, as a debate over whether our system is viable, as opposed to the European state insurance schemes, for example, is long-overdue.

I really have no problem with them putting up fag duty. I reckon it should be 200%.