Re: The Budget 2012 : Wed Mar 21, 2012 3:49 pm  

DaveO wrote:

OK fair enough.

By the way, the biggest bullet in the gun is probably the change to the pensioners personal tax allowances. The higher ones you automatically get once you retire which increases again when you hit 75.

These are going to be frozen for existing pensioners and scrapped completely for people who retire from now on.

What is means is between now and 2016/17 tax year the treasury will save £3.3bn off the backs of pensioners paying more tax. This will go toward the cost of paying for the increase in personal allowance for working people.

The paper and the opposition ought to rip them apart over this. Robbing pensioners to pay for tax breaks to the rest of us?

And this was after that stuff about older people working longer because it keeps them from getting lonely, right?

Re: The Budget 2012 : Wed Mar 21, 2012 4:12 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

I don't. I'm saying it's a strange budget to come up with. It seems, on first glance to be a perfect set of media soundbites for the opposition, as if they've turned a shotgun on their face and offered Milliband the trigger. I'm not suggesting the media should portray it any differently.

Isn't it the classic "Do all you're nasty stuff in the first three budgets, then have two popular ones" strategy?

Re: The Budget 2012 : Wed Mar 21, 2012 4:25 pm  

Cibaman wrote:

Isn't it the classic "Do all you're nasty stuff in the first three budgets, then have two popular ones" strategy?

Could well be. Get it out of the way and just let it all descend into a tit for tat arguement that the public loses interest in, then pop £0.10 off fuel duty and raise benefits before the election.

Re: The Budget 2012 : Wed Mar 21, 2012 4:31 pm  

Andy Gilder wrote:

I'm interested to know how it will be by email, given that HMRC don't currently ask for the email addresses of self assessment taxpayers and make a point of saying they won't contact you by email unless you specifically request it to avoid people falling for phishing scams.

IMO it will go out with the paper self assessment statements that are issued to taxpayers, or potentially be available online to those who are registered with HMRC Online services.

If everyone's tax is spent in the same way, and you'd have to assume it would be, a simple web application would do it. i.e. if x% goes on defence and y% on the NHS, the app could just use your tax paid figure and split it up. With a bit more work it could do the same from your personal details and NI number.

Re: The Budget 2012 : Wed Mar 21, 2012 4:44 pm  

Live Wired wrote:

:cry:

ahh well, may aswell start buying the dodgy £4/pack from the pub.

£4? Yet another reason why you should live in Bradford mate

Re: The Budget 2012 : Wed Mar 21, 2012 4:57 pm  

Live Wired wrote:

:cry:

ahh well, may aswell start buying the dodgy £4/pack from the pub.

A good example of why the 50% rate is being reduced, there are parallels between the two taxes.

Re: The Budget 2012 : Wed Mar 21, 2012 4:57 pm  

Nice of the government to pretend that the price of beer is not going up when in fact its going up by 5.4% a pint. 2% plus rate of inflation

Re: The Budget 2012 : Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:03 pm  

Noticed Osbourne did not once utter the phrase " were all in this together ", but all the front bench of millionaires blushed when Milliband asked them to nod if they were now to get a 5% tax cut. Hypocrites

Re: The Budget 2012 : Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:10 pm  

Richie wrote:

If everyone's tax is spent in the same way, and you'd have to assume it would be, a simple web application would do it. i.e. if x% goes on defence and y% on the NHS, the app could just use your tax paid figure and split it up. With a bit more work it could do the same from your personal details and NI number.

According to the further detail now published on the HMRC website, these statements will only be available to customers who submit their tax returns online. So presumably it will just be an extra option once you log on to SA Online.

So if you're a PAYE employee or submit your returns on paper, you're probably not going to get one.

Re: The Budget 2012 : Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:11 pm  

Live Wired wrote:

:cry:

ahh well, may aswell start buying the dodgy £4/pack from the pub.

Fag machines already gone from our local pubs....